Livability Programs Need Support in Transportation Reauthorization

As reported in TPR/MIR for more than a decade, you have been a champion of livability in Congress. This session, there seems to have been a setback regarding this year's Transportation Appropriations Bill. Can you address the politics of livability in the House of Representatives in 2010?

The scuffle over the Transportation Appropriations bill was actually less than meets the eye. This was basically a dispute between some of the people in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (the ‘authorizing' committee)-particularly my old friend and fellow Oregonian Peter DeFazio, who chairs the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation-and some folks in the Department of Transportation.

The Obama administration has been slow to move on reauthorization of Transportation. We have a bill that expired a year ago; we've had to extend it several times, due to issues about funding and a hesitancy to embrace a more robust bill that would require increased spending. Although conversations around the gas tax have always frustrating, the issue has recently been further complicated by the toxic atmosphere surrounding all tax debates.

The conflict on this bill, however, was more about turf than anything else. The amendment in question didn't eliminate the $200 million for livability; it simply made the livability funding contingent on the T & I Committee's authorization. There was never a concern over livability, just about who should be in charge. Rep. John Olver (D-Massachusetts), chair of the Appropriations Committee, is deeply committed to principles of livable communities and sustainability; the bill that passed reflects that, with $150 million for a sustainable communities grant, $20 million for an Office of Livability in the Department of Transportation, and other good provisions. I am convinced that before we're through, the money requested by the administration will be in the final version of the bill.

As we go into the second decade of the 21st century, what's the goal and value of including livability in the transportation reauthorization bill?

The notion of livability is that it makes a huge difference in how we put the pieces together-we need to give communities more tools to provide their residents with more choices about where to live and how to move around. The Obama administration's emphasis on livability is tangible evidence of their commitment to employ the same principles and practices that we‘ve been working on together for more than a decade. In fact, these principles were the cornerstone of work I did as a member of the Portland City Council for a decade before coming to Congress.

The Obama administration has embraced livability more aggressively than any other administration in history. Transportation Secretary LaHood continues to espouse livable communities and choices for our citizens. The federal Department of Transportation is addressing transportation bottlenecks with road solutions where appropriate, but they are also speaking out in support of transit, bicycling, pedestrian activities, the streetcar initiative, and, most importantly, how the pieces fit together. It is extraordinarily important that we give the federal government the flexibility to work with individual communities to develop and implement the vision that best meets their needs.

Perhaps the best example of this approach is the $1.6 billion in TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grants awarded to 51 communities around the country for innovative transportation solutions. In metropolitan Philadelphia, the community's priority was a trail and bike path initiative that connected low-income neighborhoods to job centers; in Cincinnati, it was a streetcar. There were billions of dollars in TIGER requests and a huge interest in projects that dramatically leveraged local dollars. It's an exciting set of developments.

Why is there so little bipartisan support in Congress today for granting federal money to local jurisdictions to make their own transportation choices about uses?

There have been some unfortunate symbolic acts that have been seized upon for short-term political gain. A stunning example occurred this year with the partisan vote on the simple act of extending the expiring Surface Transportation Act; all of the Republican leadership and half their members voted against this simple extension-something that has never happened before. Those who are looking for short-term gains represent an increasingly narrow base around the country.

On the other hand, an increasing number of areas are embracing livability. The Republican mayor of Tucson has made a streetcar his major priority. Mayor Bloomberg in New York City has one of the most ambitious livability agendas by an elected official found anywhere in America. Business, labor, and people of both parties increasingly embrace livability at the local level, yet we still have narrow, partisan ideological baggage on the federal level. These are the people who are out of step with their constituents, which is unfortunate because one of the basic principles of livability is to empower people at the local level.

What are the congressional prospects this session of reauthorizing the Surface Transportation Act? If a possibility, what might it include?

We desperately need a reauthorization that embodies the livability principles supported by the administration and put into practice in communities large and small around the country. Local efforts have long since proved the success of a livability approach; now it's time to incorporate the pilot projects and the experiments into the overall transportation framework. Livability needs to be a part of the federal partnership, and everybody should be given an opportunity to compete on this basis.

The bill that has been developed by T & I Chairman Oberstar and Surface Transportation Subcommittee Chair Peter DeFazio incorporates much of this. Mr. Oberstar is fan of livability; he's a longtime champion of bicycling. He has visited us in Portland repeatedly and has worked with people around the country to make the transportation system create more value. I've also been encouraged by Senator Boxer, the Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who plays a key role in the Senate and is sympathetic to these initiatives.

The problem is that we've got to get a piece of legislation that people can rally around. I hope that we get a bill out before Congress recesses in October. Even if, when passed, it doesn't have the revenue title, we need to let people know what difference it will make if we have a $500 billion piece of legislation that fully embraces livability principles.

Currently we are limping along with half that sum, and, perhaps more importantly, we still don't have a coherent, cohesive federal strategy. The time is growing short. I had hoped that we could break it loose in one chamber or the other before now; we've been working aggressively in that direction, but it has been caught up in the broader political crossfire about revenues. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that something could be passed in a lame duck session after the election.

There's no doubt we will be back then, working on a variety of issues. Given that the problems facing the highway program and the transit program magnify with every delay, there may be enough political will to take this on. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has invested tens of billions of dollars propping up roads, transit, and water infrastructure in every state of the union; it even allocated money for high speed rail. But this money is quickly running out.

Unless something is done, the spending levels for transportation are going to be cut virtually in half in the next fiscal year; transit investments will be reduced 30 percent at exactly the same time we need an economic boost. I personally believe-and Speaker Pelosi has articulated this on numerous occasions-that one of the most effective economic stimulus actions that Congress could take is simply reauthorizing the Surface Transportation Act at an appropriate level. This would send long-term economic signals; it would put people to work, not just in the building and construction trades, but engineers, architects, consultants, and developers who are impacted by transportation projects. It would send a very significant signal across the country that the federal government is willing to make the investments necessary to get the country moving again.

How well has the federal stimulus money been deployed to create jobs? To smartly build and repair in the nation's infrastructure? Where's it working? Where not? And what can we learn from the almost two years of stimulus investment?

The $862 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has made a huge difference. All the independent economists, including Republicans like Mark Zandi, who was Senator McCain's economic advisor in the last campaign, agree that the economic impact that resulted from the infrastructure investment was very significant. More jobs were created per million dollars invested in the infrastructure investments than in any of the other areas of the stimulus bill.

However, there was a great deal of urgency to get the money out the door and on the ground as quickly as possible. Because there was also residual apprehension about "Bridges to Nowhere," the stimulus bill was hemmed in with requirements about how and where it was spent. As a result, some projects were clearly sub-optimal.

There are still projects in the pipeline; ARRA hasn't been fully utilized. That's why the reauthorization of the Surface Transportation Act-a six-year blueprint for transportation spending and federal partnership-is so much more effective: people can plan around it; they can craft longer-term projects with larger impacts. In fact, most projects that create long-term economic impact take several years to plan and implement. The Recovery Act was welcome and important. Were we to do it over again, we could tighten it and include more infrastructure investments to create more jobs.

On balance, I would give it a "B+", particularly because it came at such a critical time, when the economy was teetering and state and local governments were reeling.

You're hosting some folks up in Portland, Oregon, in September. You represent, officially Oregon, but, unofficially, you also represent California. Talk a little bit about the nexus between Oregon and California. Why do you spread your energy between the two locations?

We all have a stake in the success of California; you not only have the seventh or eighth largest economy in the world, you have been an early adopter. You set trends, some of which, frankly, have created shockwaves in my state: Proposition 13; three strikes; and suburban patterns of development. We have a stake in your success. Frankly, if California unravels, Oregon and communities throughout the West and around the country will be swamped.

You're also innovative. I've been working with people in Southern California on the 30/10 program to accelerate 30 years of funding for transit in ten years. That is an exciting concept that will magnify the impact of your dollars in Los Angeles, and it's a model that-if we could institutionalize it-would make a huge difference around the country. California has always been a source of inspiration and apprehension. I love the partnerships; we're all in this together. California's successes makes things better for our nation, and, candidly, they make a big difference for little Oregon.

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September's issue of TPR/MIR will feature a number of interviews from China's World Economic Forum, and from Governor Schwarzenegger's China-California/Western States trade mission to Shanghai. How is it that a country with a fraction of the US's economic power is moving more rapidly than the federal government of the USA to invest heavily in the clean and green technologies?

China has a fraction of our economic power, but it is a very large fraction. In fact, China recently passed Japan as the second largest economy in the world. It has also been the fastest growing economy for the better part of 20 years. The Chinese are not burdened by many things that we accept as a country and, I think, we seriously need to adjust. For example, we waste more energy than anybody in the world, and we spend almost a billion dollars a day, every day, to import oil. Our healthcare burden is unparalleled. We spend more for defense than almost half the world combined. With all the burdens that our economy bears, we are stressed in a way that the Chinese are not.

The Chinese have been cavalier, to be charitable, about environmental standards-if they want to fill in a wetland or pollute a river, they simply do it. They're still building coal-fired plants and haven't retired the old polluting ones. They have about a quarter of the personnel in their national air quality department than California has at the state level.

In terms of process, we are extraordinarily effective in representing community interests, but sometimes we go further than we need to. California has stronger environmental standards than the United States government, but that shouldn't mean that people have to jump through two sets of hoops.

China has put money in infrastructure at a rate multiples greater than the United States. We were so excited when the Obama administration and the Recovery Act allocated $14 billion for higher-speed rail and Amtrak; meanwhile, China will spend more than $14 billion in the next two months.

Lastly, what can the public expect by the end of this session of Congress from Congress regarding a livable transportation bill? Does the November election matter regarding the livability issues you have highlighted in this interview?

The election does matter. If people support candidates who understand the impact of infrastructure investments, we can make investments to move our economy forward. If they push back on some of these notions about rebuilding and renewing America, however, we'll continue to languish. I hope that there is a way that people put this on the radar screen. Politicians are already fanning out around the country. I hope that when there are public meetings or politicians coming into factories, universities, and town halls, people raise this issue with them. Where do they stand? What are they going to do? What is their vision? This is an area that does not get the attention that it deserves. This is something that should not just be bipartisan; it should be nonpartisan. This is the sort of thing that can help us make the political process work better while we revitalize the economy and protect the planet.