Stop the Secret Porkfest
- Deron Lovaas
- Federal Transportation Policy Director, Washington, D.C.
- Blog | About
- Posted December 12, 2008 in Moving Beyond Oil
Heading home for the holidays, lawmakers will surely mull over the heated debate for an auto industry bailout. Regardless of how they feel about the outcome, at least it was discussed in broad daylight. Executives testified twice, submitted plans showing how they would commit to fuel savings, and agreed to other conditions such as a “car czar” to oversee their use of federal monies. The public was even polled about their position on a bailout.
Meanwhile, Congress has been working on the infrastructure component of an economic recovery package, and the process couldn’t be more different. State transportation departments – which not so long ago were merely highway agencies – have assembled lists that according the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the lobbying arm of state transportation departments, add up to about $64 billion. These wish lists – it is Christmas, after all – are being assembled into legislation.
However, in spite of the fact that the amount demanded is more than four times the size of the auto bailout package, the lists are not available to the public. Such secrecy may accelerate the legislative process, but history shows that legislating is best done in the public eye. These are public dollars, after all. We should have the opportunity to analyze and critique the lists to ensure they provide public benefits, as opposed to simply fulfilling the wishes of state government bureaucrats.
Equally disturbing is the lack of screening based on national objectives. What about concerns about oil dependence? And global warming pollution? And what about growing demand for public transit? This year we witnessed a remarkable trend, with driving down for 11 months straight and public transit ridership growing at record rates (6.5% in the third quarter alone). Transit clearly needs a bigger share, yet the overriding objective unfortunately appears to be “shovel-ready."
This is a recipe for bad policy and buyer’s remorse, with taxpayers funding the burden. Take, for example, the Missouri DOT’s wish list, one of the few I have been able to acquire. It includes an eye-popping $800 million worth of projects. More than 95 percent are highway projects. This clearly doesn’t adequately consider St. Louis or Kansas City, population centers that surely need more than just highways. Arizona DOT’s list isn’t much better, with less than ten percent of money going to public transportation.
The bottom line is that secretive legislating does not serve our nation. President-elect Obama has made clear that financing the economic recovery must be done carefully, with an eye to multiple national objectives (such as his stated commitment to save more than 3.5 million barrels a day of oil in 10 years). He is, of course, absolutely right. Congress should heed his words by unveiling proposed lists of projects to be funded, soliciting project lists from cities as well as states, adopting criteria such as energy efficiency and pollution reduction for financing projects, and tracking and overseeing spending pursuant to the legislation so we know if it has the desired effects.
Working to make rational policy will yield a package that provides a shot in the arm while setting the nation on a path to recovery while avoiding embarrassing boondoggles (like the infamous bridge to nowhere) that exacerbate our oil addiction and global warming challenges.
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Laurence P. Gebhardt — Dec 13 2008 07:58 PM
To The Editor: Deron Lovaas's December 12, 2008 blog post in the National Resources Defense Council (www.nrdc.org) secton, Moving Beyond Oil, was titled Stop the Secret Porkfest. His post closed with the snide “…while avoiding embarrassing boondoggles (like the infamous bridge to nowhere) that exacerbate our oil addiction and global warming challenges.” His views reveal NRDC’s bias against small-town America.
Deron may not know, but Alaska population and many of us in the lower 48 states live in ‘nowhere’ villages. Alaska’s geography makes road and rail transportation very difficult particularly along its coastline, the longest in America, and its island network. Factors such as population growth and supplies of energy, minerals, timber and fish that America needs require transportation. Bridges and ferries, along with their served airports connect many of these rural Alaskan “nowheres.” Climate change may result in even more “nowheres” developing in that state.
Nowhere, Alaska is really Gravina Island, where the international airport serves Ketchikan, another nowhere of about 13,000 people. The only way on and off of this island community is by water or by air. A small ferry moves people and vehicles to and from the airport. Ketchikan is a small town on the side of a mountain. Most buildable land is occupied. Ketchikan has no way to grow unless access to Gravina Island is created. In bad weather or bad ice conditions safe access to the airport is not easy. Those of us who live, work, and play in that area would appreciate a bridge for safety, convenience, and for economic sustainability.
Deron’s comments are cut from the cloth that wrapped critics of America’s Transcontinental Railroad and the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System both aimed at connecting rural nowheres. Derons of their day named the river and canal steamboat R&D goal to reach rural nowheres “Fulton’s Folly.” Critics, mostly city folk, then advocated that nowheres in the lower 48 states should remain isolated.
But population grew. Without bridges and ferries to cross rivers such as the Snake in Idaho where I live, and safely navigate coastal and inland waterways, the expansion of our nation would be substantially limited. Infrastructure supporting rural development normally requires public investment that will not be paid back until commerce develops and raises tax base sufficiently. Likewise research and development of air or water transportation, that may serve the public good in commerce or national security, requires public investment, at least to get started. Historians and economists tend to concur that the Transcontinental Railroad and the Interstate Highway System’s values exceeded the “pork” put into them to attract the entrepreneurial leadership to complete the projects. I perceive that investment in Alaska’s infrastructure for “nowheres” will pay off for America in the long haul.
I will pay more attention to see if NRDC is developing an anti-rural, anti-nowhere bias, as the signal Deron Lovaas sends to me, or if Deron perhaps just made a mistake.
Deron Lovaas — Dec 14 2008 11:28 AM
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I am not arguing for or from an anti-rural bias, although I am arguing for a better balance in federal transportation investments. Take highways and rail, for instance. The Interstate Highway System launched in 1956 did indeed yield a world-class system of highways. Since 1965, on the other hand, we have lost more than 100,000 our our rail miles! Now intercity rail mileage is less than half that of interstate highways. What I am arguing is for a program which lifts the nation from the remedial class in public transportation to the world class like our highway system. We need something like the proposal favored by the Free Congress Foundation: A National Defense Public Transportation Act. And the stimulus bill should be a downpayment on such a policy.
Jim Bullis — Dec 15 2008 10:24 PM
Deron,
Why not argue for better transportation first. Start with basic functional needs and look for some system whereby people could get around quickly, safely, comfortably, and without making a global mess of the environment. I think it should operate in context of the way people choose to live, as demonstrated by the way they actually live now, if at all possible. Then think about how to make transportation investments to make such a system happen.
The automobile as we know it, and trains as well, have turned out to have serious defects in light of the needs that I listed.
Perhaps real innovation is needed. It would take some real getting used to but an example of how future transportation might look is at www.miastrada.com. (I have a potential future interest in that project.)