Oberstar stymied on transit bill (Politico)
It was supposed to be a career-defining moment for Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.). He finally held the gavel of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, after four decades of waiting and had a like-minded president in office to help enact his sweeping vision for highways and public works.
But Oberstar was cut down before he even got started. Hours after he began circulating his plan last spring for a six-year, $500 billion investment in roads and rail, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood simply called for an extension of the 2005 highway bill — effectively cutting off long-term expansion plans.
“That was the beginning of a less-than-good working relationship,” said John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
The relationship soured from there, as a frustrated Oberstar slammed White House economic advisers “who never had a shovel in their hands or a callus on their fingers.”
So, while the nation’s infrastructure continues to age and crumble, Washington is stuck with a neutered transportation chairman, a White House distracted by more pressing issues and congressional leaders who lack the political will to raise gas taxes for a new $500 billion measure. And Oberstar is left without the incredible power that once came with a Transportation chairmanship — picking and choosing where to send billions in highway pork.
“I don’t know why they
For the Obama administration, deep-sixing the bill was a political necessity, because raising the gas tax is a nonstarter in an election year. And until Oberstar or another lawmaker can find a viable alternative method to raise the $200 billion plus needed to fully fund his legislation, it is likely to stay stuck in no man’s land.
That leaves the entire transportation industry, from bridge builders to bike boosters, waiting in vain for a breakthrough that might jump-start Oberstar’s efforts. Meanwhile, stimulus infrastructure dollars have not stopped construction unemployment from topping 20 percent, and some insiders are bracing for a funding impasse that lingers indefinitely.
“There has to be some way for all of the disparate interests to get together and try to motivate action on this,” said Janet Kavinoky, chief infrastructure lobbyist of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Because regardless of what you’re looking for, you won’t be able to achieve that until the priority is put on transportation.”
Despite his complaints about the administration’s lack of attention to his main issue, Oberstar remains at a loss for how to pay for his bill without a gas-tax hike.
“Right now, we’re looking at bake sales,” quipped his spokesman, Jim Berard.
Oberstar explained in an interview that his broadsides at the administration were intended “to push them” toward a deal on a long-term bill. He’s gotten nowhere.
“They’ve sat down to talk with us, but they don’t have a plan for financing the future of transportation,” he said.
Some of Oberstar’s biggest K Street allies are also having trouble lining up support for the legislation. Rank-and-file lawmakers still do not know how much transportation money their states would get under Oberstar’s plan, and while the Senate recently has made progress on its version, the upper chamber is no closer than the House to finding new funding.
“We have to get out of the expectation that there’s going to be some magic moment where there’s an epiphany about financing,” said Dave Bauer, senior lobbyist for the American Road & Transportation Builders Association. If the political will to pass a transportation bill depends on finding the funding, Bauer warned that the result could be “a circular, never-ending process.”
Oberstar is hardly the first transportation committee chairman to face stop signs from his own party. The late Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) mounted a PR campaign to help pass his 1998 highway bill over the objections of House Republican leaders, and GOP Rep. Don Young of Alaska was forced to relent on the size of his 2005 bill after the Bush administration rejected his call to raise gas taxes.
But Oberstar lacks the bare-knuckled political instincts of Shuster and Young, relying instead on his famous policy acumen to get things done.
“He’s not a wheeler-dealer kind of guy,” a veteran transportation advocate said of Oberstar.
For now, Oberstar — and the entire transportation industry — is in limbo wondering whether the $500 billion bill will get a serious look this year.
“Not over the indifference and even opposition of an administration,” said former Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), co-chairman of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s infrastructure reform project.
The White House, while aligning with Oberstar’s policy reforms, is still looking to put off the new bill until spring 2011. LaHood “shares Chairman Oberstar’s goal,” spokesman Olivia Alair wrote in an e-mail and is working on “a set of principles that we hope will bring us closer” to a new bill.
But with Democrats expected to lose a significant number of seats in the midterm election, Oberstar will have a diminished committee — or may even be forced to hand over the gavel to ranking Republican Rep. John Mica of Florida.
For his part, Mica is sympathetic to the administration’s reluctance to engage on a six-year bill until supporters of a tax increase — whom he described as “smoking the funny weed” — find an alternative.
“They are probably politically correct in not moving forward,” Mica said in an interview. “Probably Mr. Oberstar needs to be a little more flexible.”
By: Elana Schor
May 17, 2010 05:23 AM EDT
