By Ron Thaniel
February 2, 2009

Denver Mayor John W. Hickenlooper, Chair of the Transportation and Communications Committee, convened panel members January 18 to review the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009, assess the outlook for the next surface transportation program, urge increased investments in broadband deployment and a national rail policy for the 21st Century.

In his opening comments, Hickenlooper called on the mayors to engage their Congressional delegations and the new Administration to urge action on an economic recovery plan that invests in America's cities and their metros and pending legislation to renew the nation's multi-year surface transportation law, known as SAFETEA-LU, and reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Introducing Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (OR), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure; and Aaron Klein, Chief Economist with the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Hickenlooper told the mayors and other participants that, "Our cities and their metro areas are the drivers of our national economy. Therefore, if we are going to reverse the current economic situation and create jobs, the only way to do so is to invest in our metropolitan economies."

Summarizing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009 introduced in the House on January 15, Hickenlooper said, "We received funding in every one of the ten program areas we called for in our MainStreet Economic Recovery Plan."

"In addition, many of the programs that have been funded represent long-term priorities that the Conference of Mayors has been leading on and promoting for years," said Hickenlooper.

Summarizing one point of concern regarding the highway formula, Hickenlooper noted, "The Conference called for the Surface Transportation Program (STP) as the mechanism for distributing highway infrastructure funds."

"This is not the distribution mechanism in the House proposal," Hickenlooper told the panel of mayors.

"The House proposal gives states 55 percent of the money with no programmatic or place based distribution requirements and run the remaining 45 percent through the full STP Program," stressed Hickenlooper.

The full STP program means:

• Two percent set-aside off the top for state planning and research;

• Then ten percent off the top for Transportation Enhancements; and

• Then remaining funds are divided 37.5 percent to states for "Any Areas" funds or what is often called "State STP" or "State Flex" and the remaining 62.5 percent is distributed to "Local Areas."

Hickenlooper explained that "If STP was used as the mechanism for the distribution of highway funds, metro areas with a population of 200,00 or more would receive $9.1 billion for ready-to-go projects versus about $4 billion."

DeFazio explained to the panel of mayors that the "amount of infrastructure spending in the legislation is not enough."

He said Democrats in Congress originally proposed more for infrastructure spending, but advisors (then) President-Elect Barack Obama shot down this effort. The $300 billion in tax cuts had to be paid for some way, said DeFazio.

DeFazio also said the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee pushed for STP, including suballocation, for the distribution method for highway funds, but it was "modified by Appropriations."

He expressed disappointment with the whole approach stating, "If you look at the narrow (definition of) infrastructure, it is 7 percent of the bill. If you look at the broader bill, including school construction, it is 16 percent of the bill."

"Tax cuts have forced less money for infrastructure," stressed DeFazio.

Regarding the next surface transportation bill, DeFazio said he is expecting a robust bill, noting, "Oberstar [Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee] is talking about a $400 billion reauthorization."

Recognizing that the Conference is advocating for a multimodal approach to transportation policy, DeFazio said, "To get to a truly multimodal surface transportation bill, we would have to do away with the silos in the program."

Of significance, DeFazio said, "Mayors and county officials deserve at least a seat, if not more then the states, in the next bill." He also told the mayors to keep pushing for a better stimulus.

Klein joined with the panel of mayors to urge support for the creation of a national infrastructure bank to address the critical needs of our nation's major infrastructure systems.

The legislation would establish a new method through which the federal government could finance infrastructure projects of substantial regional or national significance more effectively, said Klein.

Publicly-owned public transit systems, housing properties, roads, bridges, drinking water systems, and wastewater systems would be eligible for funding under the infrastructure bank, according to Klein.

In explaining the need for an infrastructure bank, Klein said, "Current federal financing methods do not adequately distribute funding based on an infrastructure project's size, location, cost, usage, or economic benefit to a region or the entire nation."

Tallahassee Mayor John Marks, Vice Chair for the Communications Subcommittee, told the mayors and participants, "As a nation, we must ensure that every American has access to broadband Internet access."

"As (then) President-Elect Barack Obama said, America should lead the world in broadband penetration and Internet access; therefore, over the next couple of months, I will lead discussions with Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and the nation's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to express the Conference's strong support for broadband deployment in our cities and their metro areas," stressed Marks.

Marks said the Conference would express the strong support for deployment while "protecting local authority to franchise the use of our rights-of-way, preserve local rights-of-way management and customer service issues, and ensure with deployment comes reasonable build-out."

Regarding the nation-wide transition to all-digital broadcast television scheduled for February 17, Marks told the mayors that, "The transition will likely be delayed until at least June due to a government coupon program designed to help consumers to prepare is running low on money."

Explaining to the mayors the benefit of the switch, Marks said, "It will free up parts of the broadcast spectrum for public safety communications. Therefore, we need Congress and the new Administration to resolve the coupon issue quickly."

As U.S.Mayor goes to print, the House is poised to clear a bill that will delay the nation-wide transition by four months. The bill (S. 328) passed the Senate late on January 19.

Meridian (MS) Mayor John Robert Smith, Vice Chair for the Rail Subcommittee, told the mayors and other participants that, "We experienced tremendous success getting the Amtrak reauthorization bill passed by Congress and signed into law."

"The bill authorizes $13 billion over five years for federal rail programs, including the potential for expansion of Amtrak," said Smith.

Regarding the issue on on-time performance, he said, "For those of you who have Amtrak service outside the Northeast, I hope you've noticed the dramatic on-time performance improvement of your trains, as well. The bill requires that the trains run on-time at least 80 percent of the time."

"In addition, the economic recovery (or stimulus) proposal set forth by the House recommends $1.1 billion for intercity passenger rail - $800M for Amtrak capital projects and $300M for the states. It is expected that Amtrak would spend this money on projects over and above the approximately $1.5 billion authorized amount for FY09," Smith explained.

Tom Carper, Member of the Amtrak Board of Directors, and past mayor of Macomb (IL) brought greetings and news that the Amtrak Board is considering re-creating the Amtrak Mayors' Advisory Council with the first meeting planned for Providence during the Conference's 77th Annual Meeting.