Senators Take Up Transport Policy

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is out of the gate in the highway spending debate with a plan that would redirect federal transportation policy.

The Federal Surface Transportation Policy and Planning Act of 2009 would set goals and objectives for the Department of Transportation, including encouraging the growth of multimodal transportation, which includes shifting some freight off highways.

It’s an early shot in the upcoming congressional battle over surface transportation funding and an attempt to steer the policy debate over the goals of the next highway bill.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., expects to introduce a surface transportation spending bill next month calling for at least $450 billion in infrastructure spending.

The Senate policy bill strives to accommodate more than just highway users.

“We need to look at how we can use other modes of transportation to move freight and passengers more efficiently,” a senior Senate staff member said.

“Because the highways are so crowded, we need to be thinking about it in advance so we don’t get caught one day when all of our networks are blocked up.”

The bill’s authors, Senate Chairman John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., don’t spell out details of how the DOT should meet their goals, or how to pay for them. The Senate’s Environment and Public Works and Banking committees have jurisdiction over highways and mass transit. If there would be changes in revenue to consider, the Senate Finance Committee would have a say as well.

“The Commerce Committee is laying down its marker,” said Janet F. Kavinoky, transportation infrastructure policy director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “EPW and Banking are the primary authorizers, but the Commerce Committee has the big-picture view of interstate commerce. They have all the industry regulation pieces. At some point, all of that has to come together.”

The bill puts freight transportation at center stage, calling for a national policy for the efficient and safe movement of people and goods. “Freight traffic is expected to at least double over the next 20 to 30 years,” said the Senate staffer. “If we don’t look at the program now, we’re going to find ourselves in a really tough spot in the future.”

“This is a very good move. I think it helps to get the focus on freight,” said Anne P. Canby, president of the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership. “It starts a conversation that is very much needed.

“Freight has absolutely come on the radar screen. We’ve seen the growth in imports, and the increase in truck and rail traffic. It’s gotten a huge amount of attention, and well deserved. I think everybody recognizes that we can’t just focus on moving people, we’ve got to figure out the freight,” Canby said. “That underlies our economic efficiency.”

Not everyone will embrace the bill’s goals. One of the most controversial is a call for a 10 percent increase in “non-highway” or multimodal freight transportation by 2020. While not an outright mandate to shift freight from trucks to rail or water, it has already drawn criticism
from the American Trucking Associations.

“A simple act of Congress cannot overturn the entire United States distribution and supply chain network that depends on the trucking industry to move 70 percent of the nation’s freight,” said Tim Lynch, the ATA’s senior vice president.

“However, if Congress really wants to look at minimizing commercial vehicle miles traveled, then we would suggest they seriously consider the only effective means to do that: increasing truck equipment productivity,” he said. That would mean raising truck size and weight limits, something that already has heavy opposition.

The transportation policy bill also forges a link with goals the Obama administration has set down for reducing greenhouse gases. The bill calls for a 40 percent reduction in carbon dioxide from transportation sources by 2030.

“A number of us in the transportation community recognized that the transportation sector contributes about a third of the CO2 emissions,” Canby said. “Even with CAFE standards and alternate fuels, it will be hard to reach a level of reduction that is what most people are talking about, 80 percent by 2050.”

The Obama administration last week unveiled tougher fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks as well as emissions controls. The White House wants to raise the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard from 25.1 miles per gallon to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.

“The challenge now is to start thinking about our national transportation policy in a way that links to climate emissions and other things like cost, not only to the public sector, but businesses and household budgets as well,” Canby said. “How do we get a system that acts like an integrated network that’s more efficient? We don’t have the institutional structures to make that happen.”

Contact R.G. Edmonson at bedmonson@joc.com