Administration's $247 billion Trasportation Spending

[Timber Loftis]

BNA Reporter
No. 94
Thursday, May 15, 2003 Page A-13
ISSN 1521-9402
News

Transportation
DOT Says Highway, Transit Proposal
Will Advance Major Environment Goals

The Bush administration's long-awaited legislative proposal to reauthorize the nation's highway and transit programs includes major provisions to advance the president's environmental stewardship goals, top Transportation Department officials told reporters May 14.
At a briefing to release the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA), Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said 25 percent of the $247 billion measure "will be invested in programs designed to improve the environment."

"These include programs to reduce emissions, promote bicycle and pedestrian facilities as well as transit programs, and continue the president's successful emphasis on environmental stewardship to help federal, state and local agencies reach agreement on environmentally sound transportation projects while eliminating those that harm the environment," Mineta said.

SAFETEA would reauthorize highway and transit programs for fiscal year 2004 through fiscal 2009. A total of about $195.2 billion would go to the highway program and about $45 billion is designated for the transit program.

Federal Highway Administrator Mary Peters ran down a long list of environmental provisions aimed at expediting project delivery while addressing environmental concerns--including new approaches toward environmental streamlining, increased delegation of authority to states for environmental reviews, and new standards for reviewing transportation project impacts to historic properties and parkland.

Reacting to the proposal, environmental and public interest groups immediately cried foul, charging that many of the proposed changes would slash environmental safeguards for air quality, historic preservation, and National Environmental Policy Act reviews. They raised substantial concerns over proposed changes related to transportation conformity, and said the bill contains inadequate funding for vital air quality provisions under the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program (CMAQ).


Environmental Provisions

The SAFETEA provisions mirror those in earlier drafts of the measure, although DOT officials said the language has seen minor changes over the past several weeks of interagency review.
Peters said the bill includes the following provisions to address expedited environmental reviews:

Provides the DOT secretary broad authority to develop and implement expedited procedures for streamlining;

Requires coordinated reviews;

Provides the project sponsor with authority to request federal agencies to establish specific timeframes for environmental reviews;

Designates state and local governments as lead agencies with U.S. DOT in conducting environmental reviews;

Allows state governors and heads of federal agencies to initiate a dispute resolution process;

Defines a statute of limitation of 180 days for legal challenges following approval of an environmental document;

Provides for delegation of categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act to state DOTs;

Provides a number of changes under Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act for reviews related to historic preservation and parkland including: identifying specific factors the secretary can consider in determining whether an alternative is feasible and prudent, excluding from 4(f) transportation improvements on federal land, allowing Section 106 historic preservation consultation to satisfy Section 4(f), exempting the interstate highway system from historic review while allowing discretion to include specific elements of the interstate system.

In addition, Peters said, the measure would revise CMAQ to better address the new Clean Air Act non-attainment areas, adopt "ENLIBRA" principles, and provide for environmental and research funding.


'Purpose and Need' Provisions Absent

Conspicuously absent from the administration's proposal were provisions seen in earlier drafts aimed at ensuring that permitting and review agencies show "substantial deference" to DOT decisions regarding transportation projects' purpose and need determinations.
DOT officials told BNA that Mineta determined the provisions were not necessary following consultation with James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In a May 6 letter to Connaughton, Mineta asked for clarification regarding the roles of the lead agency and of the cooperating agency under NEPA in determining purpose and need.

In a May 12 reply letter, Connaughton said, "In the case of a proposal intended to address transportation needs, joint lead or cooperating agencies should afford substantial deference to the DOT agency's articulation of purpose and need."

"This deference reflects CEQ's expectation and experience in other settings where an agency has the primary substantive expertise and program responsibility," Connaughton said.

Following this exchange, the language on purpose and need was omitted from the final proposal.


Other Provisions

The proposal also includes a number of other environmental provisions addressing the following:
Delegation of authority to state transportation agencies for several programs, including Transportation Enhancements; Recreational Trails; and Transportation, Community, and System Preservation;

A new "Surface Transportation System Performance Pilot Program" that would offer a broader scale delegation of authority to states;

Establishment of a Surface Transportation Environment and Planning Cooperative Research Program;

Modifications to the National Highway System/Surface Transportation Program for invasive species, wetlands, and environmental restoration;

Use of high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes;

Bicycle and pedestrian programs;

A new multi-modal program on energy, climate change, and transportation;

Idling reduction facilities in interstate rights-of-way; and

Toll programs.


Environmental Groups Warn of Roll-Backs

Despite the rosy picture painted by DOT officials, environmental and public interest groups appeared alarmed at the bill's provisions--particularly those addressing transportation conformity, CMAQ, and Section 4(f) reviews.
While commending the administration's retention of the basic framework of TEA-21 and ISTEA, Ann Canby, president of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, said the measure has taken "some wrong turns."

"The bill lacks necessary funding for urgently needed clean air measures the public wants, and it reduces the frequency with which transportation decision-makers are held accountable for healthier air. This is especially troubling given the alarming increase in asthma and other health problems related to air pollution." Canby said.

A coalition of environmental groups--including Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife, Friends of the Earth, and Sierra Club--sent a bleaker message, charging that the measure "slashes the protections of NEPA, the Clean Air Act, measures to preserve historic sites, and targets transit."

"Abdicating the federal government's responsibilities under NEPA and passing responsibilities onto state and local governments clearly violates the spirit of the law," said Bill Snape, chief counsel with Defenders of Wildlife.

"The Bush administration further attempts to slash NEPA by limiting the amount of time citizens are given to bring claims to court and by allowing environmental reviews to be conducted for a "class of projects, or program" rather than just individual projects," he said.


Conformity Concerns

Targeting the transportation conformity provisions, the groups said the administration bill would reduce the frequency, scope, and effectiveness of accounting for air pollution from highways.
Michael Replogle, director of the Environmental Defense transportation program, told BNA that the provisions mean there would be no mechanism for transportation plans to be held accountable for their contributions to emissions affecting attainment of new ozone and fine particulate standards.

A DOT official told BNA that the bill's conformity provisions were intended to better integrate air quality planning and transportation. "We've combined requirements of transportation improvement program with the transportation plan."

"You have a single conformity step on a combined document rather than two separate steps," he said. "While we still retain a 20-year planning horizon for purposes of transportation planning, we have redefined that planning horizon for purposes of making the conformity determination.

Basically, the bill will define the planning horizon to be 10 years, or the last year of an air quality plan that has an emissions budget, whichever is later, the official said. "What that means is we will guarantee that we will always do conformity for at least 10 years, even if an air quality plan only goes out five years."

The bill would encourage air quality agencies and state DOTs and MPOs to work together to develop longer term air quality plans if they anticipate long term air quality problems.

The provision would require an analysis out to the last year of the transportation plan, the official said. But for conformity, the last 10 years would be for informational purposes. That regional analysis feeds back into that integrated transportation air quality planning process. It serves to help update those planning processes, he said.

In addition, the update cycle would change from three years to five years.

"It is not only consistent across attainment and nonattainment areas, but it also protects air quality," the official said. "Metropolitan planning organizations still have flexibility to update the transportation plan at any time, but they will have to go back to the conformity process. It also does not overturn the transportation conformity triggers in EPA's conformity regulations."

The bill would protect air quality by requiring conformity determinations to be made whenever there is an update to the plan or if a trigger is reached in the EPA regulations.


CMAQ Concerns

Environmental groups also raised concerns that the CMAQ program would be charged with greater responsibilities without a proportional increase in funding. "CMAQ funding would initially be cut and ultimately grow only by a paltry 9 percent over the bill's six-year span," the groups said.
The CMAQ program funds projects and programs in air quality nonattainment and maintenance areas that reduce transportation-related emissions. Under the bill, CMAQ eligibility would be broadened to include projects in nonattainment and maintenance areas for fine particulates (PM 2.5) as well as for ozone under the new eight-hour standard.

According to Replogle, the CMAQ funding should double to meet the increased needs.

Text of the SAFETEA proposal is available on the WorldWide Web at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/reauthorization/.

By Amy Phillips
__________________________________________________ ______
TL Comments come at the end this time, for reasons that will become obvious:

While I support good environmental programs 100%, waste is waste. YOu will note that among the wonderful astounding things done with 25% of this money that is earmarked "environmental" are:
- let one gov't agency talk to another
- let gov't agencies talk to State agencies
- build bike paths in... well, god knows where -- it depends on who needs the pork most for next election I guess
- build sidewalks and other pedways in... well, god knows where

- "bill would protect air quality by requiring conformity determinations to be made whenever there is an update to the plan or if a trigger is reached in the EPA regulations" -- well [img]graemlins/doh.gif[/img] the law requires this already

- "bill would encourage air quality agencies and state DOTs and MPOs to work together to develop longer term air quality plans if they anticipate long term air quality problems" -- can't a letter from Bush do this? [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

- "A new multi-modal program on energy, climate change, and transportation" -- is this English??

- "Provides the DOT secretary broad authority to develop and implement expedited procedures for streamlining" -- If it takes legislation, it already ain't streamlined. If the DOT secretary, who is the REGULATOR who writes every frikken page of his 3 volumes of the Code of Federal Regulations, can't "streamline" with the powers already granted to him, buy me a ticket to Finland or some other more sensible place, please. BTW, "Secretary" is legislative speak -- the laws require and agency head to do something, thereby requiring the agency as a whole to do it.

- "Defines a statute of limitation of 180 days for legal challenges following approval of an environmental document" -- Yeah, cut out Sierra Club's voice - that'll help the environment.

- "Idling reduction facilities in interstate rights-of-way" -- anyone care to educate me on what exactly this means?????

and, my FAVORITE, where as part of this huge funding we pay other government agencies to figure out how to tax us more:

- "Toll programs" [img]graemlins/shine.gif[/img]

Well, let me whip out my wallet as fast as can be!
God Bless America! [img]graemlins/usa.gif[/img]

[ 05-15-2003, 10:45 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Timber Loftis]

*bump* ('Cause nobody read it - *snif* [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img] )

[ 05-15-2003, 06:55 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Attalus]

I read it, I just don't have the data to challenge you on it. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Arvon]

What you forgot to remember is that a politicians', any politician, job is to spend your money. That's how they stay in business. The so called compation for this group or that group is so much bs. Remember Sen. Byrd (sheets).

[Timber Loftis]

Yeah, Arvon, but spending my money is only an ends in and of itself from their warped nepotistic bribe-complimenting-bribe point of view. I at least have a right to demand they come up with better BS that $200+ billion on letting one bloated bureaucracy learn how to TALK to another!! With all their money and high-falutin edumacation I can at least expect they tell me a REASONABLE lie.

I read it and was baffled by the typical governmentese that the proposal is written in...but on the other side of the coin...the Eco-peoples response was just as typical..it's never enough, it is never exactly what they want and dammit if you don't do it exactly the way we tell you, then you are making things worse.... [img]smile.gif[/img] can't please them really.