The Ferguson Group Blog

National Infrastructure Bank Finds a New Champion

The Senate now has a champion for legislation to create a National Infrastructure Bank.  In an announcement about his leadership on the issue, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) called on unions, contractors, and state and local governments to join him in promoting the issue and securing more support in the Senate.  He specifically targeted the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce. The proposal would authorize funding for major, large-scale infrastructure projects, like roads, bridges, and water infrastructure.  It would closely mirror previous legislation that had been championed by former Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX).  Sen. Warner’s strategy intends to have the bill included in the reauthorization of MAP-21, the current surface transportation bill, which expires in 2014. He feels that the future of transportation funding will be grounded in alternative financing, which may include proposals such as tolling and public-private partnerships.  The new bill is expected to include $10 billion of initial federal investment so that the infrastructure bank may  issue loans and loan guarantees and he is expected to release a draft bill in February.

Wednesday News Roundup

Every Wednesday, the Ferguson Group blog will be posting a series of articles published over the previous week that discuss topics of interest to local governments.  Learn about emerging trends and keep up on key policy issues by browsing the TFG Wednesday News Roundup!

Senators Offer A Bipartisan Blueprint for Immigration

A bipartisan group of senators have agreed on a set of principles to overhaul the country’s immigration system.  Under the plan, the nation’s 1 million undocumented immigrants would have a path to citizenship.  The plan would also tighten immigration enforcement.  The group hopes that this proposal will help to frame the upcoming immigration debate.  Read more . . .

Senior Citizens Drive Infrastructure Spending

Mayors around the country are beginning to understand that mobility plays a big role in the health and well-being of America’s rapidly aging population.  Policies that allow older people to maintain their social ties with the community encourage greater life expectancies. Investing in transportation infrastructure also allows older individuals, who may not have access to cars, to maintain community ties and easily access medical care.  Read more . . .

Virginia’s Bold, New Transportation Funding Idea

Governor Bob McDonnell (VA) has a new plan to fund his state’s transportation needs.  He plans on repealing the gas tax and raising a portion of the sales tax dedicated to transportation to pay for more than $3.1 billion in new transportation funding.  Read more . . .

Rep. Paul Ryan Says He Thinks ‘Sequester Is Going To Happen’

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) thinks that the sequester, a series of mandatory across the board federal spending cuts, will take place on March 1.  He believes that the cuts will occur because Democrats have opposed Republican offers to replace those cuts with other cuts and have offered no alternative spending cut proposals.  Read more . . .

Congress Takes Up Gun Violence

Today, the Senate Judiciary committee was scheduled to hear various proposals on stronger gun controls.  One proposal would ban fast-firing semiautomatic weapons and ammunition magazines that can hold more than 10 bullets.  Another proposal would make federal background checks universal, while another proposal would create a separate criminal offense for gun trafficking.  Read more . . .

President Obama Signs $50B Sandy Relief Bill

The President signed into law a $50.5 billion emergency measure that would aid the victims of Hurricane Sandy.  The bill will help residents and businesses in storm ravaged communities, rebuild and recover.  As with past natural disasters, the Sandy aid bill is not offset with spending cuts.  Read more . . .

Relief for Sandy Victims, at Long Last

On Monday evening, by a vote of 62-36, the Senate passed  the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013, which will provide $50.5 billion in aid for Hurricane Sandy recovery. This legislation includes funding for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund and will support the federal government’s recovery efforts through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Small Business Administration, and the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Interior, and Commerce. President Obama is expected to sign the long overdue bill immediately.  Before passing the bill, the majority of  Senators rejected an amendment from Senator Mike Lee of Utah that would impose across-the-board cuts to offset the new spending. Offsets like this are highly irregular on disaster relief bills.

After two Congresses, and significant delays in the House of Representatives, this bill passed the Senate on the eve of the three-month anniversary of the storm hitting the New Jersey coast.  With only four short months until the start of the next Hurricane season, these resources will be put to work immediately to support recovery, restoration, and future storm mitigation. 

New Cabinet To Include New Transport Secretary

USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood announced today he will step down.  In his message to Department of Transportation staff he said, “I have let President Obama know that I will not serve a second term as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. It has been an honor and a privilege to lead the Department, and I am grateful to President Obama for giving me such an extraordinary opportunity. I plan to stay on until my successor is confirmed to ensure a smooth transition for the Department and all the important work we still have to do.” 

The LaHood tenure over the past four years hardly went wanting for issues. The department played a key role early in the first term of the Obama presidency when it was called upon to implement part of the $800 billion economic stimulus and to create the TIGER grant program that continued for several rounds.  And while the White House quickly nixed any discussion by the Secretary of an increase in the fuel taxes to shore up the Highway Trust Fund and enable the writing of a strong surface transportation bill he is able to point to the enactment of a two-year bill (MAP-21) that finally made it to the White House for signature.  He also introduced to USDOT the concept of liveable communities and made "no-texting" a common call for safe driving throughout the country.   

Ray LaHood, Republican of Peoria, served in Congress for fourteen years. In his later years in the House he was at the center of attempts to restore a measure of civility to the increasingly partisan tones heard among his colleagues and elsewhere on Capitol Hill.  He often was pointed to as the Republican in a Democratic President's cabinet. It was a model first paved by former Secretary Norman Mineta who served a record seven years at USDOT during the Georege W. Bush Administration.    

 

Harbor Fund Hearing This Week, WRDA Bill Soon After?

It's significant that the House and Senate transportation committee chairs have stated that they are making water resources legislation the priority subject when their panels start producing bills. The last Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) was signed into law in 2007. Today the Corps of Engineers has twenty-some projects with the requisite Chief's Report and ready for the congressional authorization stage.

The first WRDA related action takes place this week when the Environment & Public Works Committee holds a hearing on the "Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund and the Need to Invest in the Nation's Ports."  It will air the need for full use of the trust fund resources--with an unexpended balance reaching $7 billion--for channel maintenance. That is the subject of the so-called RAMP legislation that had nearly 200 co-sponsors in the previous Congress and is being reintroduced for this new session.

EPW Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has another interest in the subject since her State's ports are also proposing that the HMTF be used for additional port related work. The huge, neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach largely have no need for channel maintenance funding but would like to tap the trust fund for other projects. That requires a change in the law. They and other California ports also would like to be able to claim some portion of the Harbor Maintenannce Tax annual revenue for use in the State.  (The term "donor state" that has been in use for years in the highway funding debates is now being heard in this context although the Highway Trust Fund and HMTF and related programs are very different things.) Setting aside a portion of HMT revenue also would require amending WRDA law. It is an idea that will have supporters and opposers among the American port authorities. It will be an interesting policy discussion with no quick resolution.  

Meanwhile, watch for Chairman Boxer to get out a draft WRDA text for input from her committee colleagues.  The ranking Republican, David Vitter (R-LA), will be an essential partner in producing a WRDA bill that will ultimately win Senate support.     

Studying Bike Crashes Can Help to Minimize Them

A recent article in The Atlantic Cities highlights a new study conducted by the City of Minneapolis.  The study was a “comprehensive crash analysis” of bikes.  It looked through approximately 3,000 bike accidents involving cars between the years 2000 and 2010.  The three main factors that led to bike crashes were lack of infrastructure, driver awareness, and rider behavior. Bicyclists played a role in 59 percent of recorded bike and car collisions.  Bicyclists were most likely to fail to yield and disregard a traffic signal.  Drivers contributed to 64 percent of accidents.  (The numbers add to a number greater than a hundred percent because there are accidents where both the driver and the bicyclist are at fault.)  Drivers were most likely to fail to yield or to be distracted while driving.

These accidents show that there is a need to improve bicycling infrastructure in cities.  Dedicated bike lanes can lower bike related injuries by half.  Even more impressive is that protected bike lanes (bike lanes that are physically separated by a divider from the street) can lower injury risks by 90 percent.  Minneapolis intends to improve its bicycle infrastructure.  It plans to add 183 miles of bikeway soon and to bring all of the city’s residents within a half mile of a bike lane by 2020.  Adding bicycle infrastructure has another benefit—it makes bicycling safer by encouraging more riders.  From 2000 to 2010, though the number of trips on bicycles increased, the number of accidents stayed constant.  Proper urban bicycle infrastructure can make all the difference in the safety of a city’s bicyclists.

FTA to Host Webinars on News Starts/Small Starts Final Rule and Proposed Guidance

Earlier this month, my colleague, Bill Hanka, wrote a great blog post on the New Starts/Small Starts final rulemaking that was published on January 9^th. To review his post for background information on the New Starts/Small Starts grant program and on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s rulemaking, click here.

The Federal Transit Administration will hold three public webinars to discuss the New Starts final rule and the accompanying proposed policy guidance that is available on FTA’s website here. Each of the three webinars will cover the same material and are limited to 200 participants. The webinars will be offered at the following times on a first-come, first-serve basis, with no RSVP required:

• Thursday, January 31^st from 10 am – 12 pm Eastern Time. To join the meeting click here.
• Tuesday, February 5^th from 2 pm – 4 pm Eastern Time. To join the meeting click here. 
• Wednesday, February 13^th from 1 pm – 3 pm Eastern Time. To join the meeting click here.

Sen. Boxer Releases bill to Increase Buildings’ Energy Efficiency

Energy and environmental aficionados are taking note of Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) new bill to improve energy efficiency in federal government buildings.  The bill, Promoting Efficiency and Savings in Government Act (S. 52), would require the General Services Administration (GSA) to conduct energy audits on buildings to identify ways to improve energy efficiency, reduce costs and ways to pay for themselves within 10 years as well as calculate costs that could be saved.  GSA would then have to report to Congress and the public within a year on the energy and cost savings tied to improving efficiency.  They would then set minimum energy-intensity and lighting-efficiency standards, and record energy and water-efficiency information for all building leases entered into by the federal government.

Senator Boxer also wrote a letter to Matt Erskine, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Economic Development Administration saying that a future program could be modeled after the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA), but called BIFIA for buildings.  She said the program could help communities “invest in clean technologies that reduce energy demands, lower energy bills, and promote more durable energy systems”.

The Environmental Protection Agency say on their website, energy used by commercial and industrial buildings in the United States is responsible for nearly 50% of our national emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that contribute to global climate change.  BIFIA could make a real difference to local governments if, through future legislation, they can achieve substantial energy cost savings across their facilities, demonstrate energy and environmental leadership, and raise public awareness of the benefits of energy efficiency to reduce GHG emissions.

 

Sen. Feinstein to Roll Out Ban on Assault Weapons

After the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut late last year, gun control legislation has been put back on the national agenda.  Several key politicians and some advocacy groups have expressed an interest in working to pass gun control legislation in the coming year.  One such politician is Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).  Today, she will introduce an updated version of her assault weapon and large capacity clip ban that expired in 2004.  Conference of Mayors President Michael A. Nutter will stand with Senator Feinstein in Washington to help introduce the legislation to the public in a press conference.

The bill is similar to the one that Sen. Feinstein introduced in 1994.  It contains a variety of provisions that both ban many assault weapons, while at the same time protect the rights of existing gun owners and legitimate hunters.  These provisions include the following:

• Ban the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of 120 specifically-named firearms and certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, and shotguns;
• Ban large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, capable of accepting more than ten rounds;
• Strengthen the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and state bans;
• Protect legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment and exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting and sporting and antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons;
• Require that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act; ban the transfer of grandfathered large-capacity ammunition feeding devices; establish a voluntary buy-back program for grandfathered assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition feeding devices; and impose a safe storage requirement for grandfathered firearms.

Wednesday News Roundup

Every Wednesday, the Ferguson Group blog will be posting a series of articles published over the previous week that discuss topics of interest to local governments.  Learn about emerging trends and keep up on key policy issues by browsing the TFG Wednesday News Roundup!

Speech Gives Climate Goals Center Stage

In his second Inaugural Address, the President made addressing climate change his most prominent policy commitment.  The President plans to avoid one of his first term mistakes, congressional fights, by avoiding a confrontation with Congress.  Instead, he intends to administratively reduce emissions from power plants, increase the efficiency of home appliances, and have the federal government produce less carbon.  Read more . . .

Moran to introduce updated high-skill immigration bill this month

Sen. Moran (R-KS) said he plans to introduce an updated version of the Startup Act 2.0 this month.  This Act includes a provision that would create a new visa allowing foreign students who graduate with a master’s or Ph.D. in engineering, science, or math fields from a U.S. university to get a green card.  Read more . . .

Washington: Local Government Organizations Commend EPA’s Memorandum Concerning Financial Capability for Clear Water Act Requirements

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it will work with local governments to clarify how the financial capability of a community will be considered when developing schedules for municipal projects necessary to meet Clean Water Act (CWA) obligations.  Local governments have raised questions about complying with several CWA requirements—notably wet weather overflows and storm water management.  Read more . . .

Muni Bond Market a Political Pawn in 2013

Although the tax exemption for municipal tax bonds remained untouched during the fiscal cliff negotiations, there is still some question as to whether Congress will remove the tax free status of municipal bond interest in 2013.  The exemption allows state and localities to issue bonds at a lower interest rate, making it cheaper to borrow money for infrastructure projects.  Read more . . .  

Amazon Fails to Collect New Georgia Tax

Amazon has not been complying with a new Georgia law to pay sales tax.  The new law expands the definition of physical presence so that online retailers, like Amazon, have to pay a tax because it gets some customer traffic from other sites that have physical operations in Georgia.  Amazon has not been charging its customers this tax and this has set up a possible future constitutional challenge to the law.  Read more . . .

Many Medicaid Patients Could Face Higher Fees Under a Proposed Federal Policy

The Obama administration has told state Medicaid officials that they can charge high co-payments and premiums for doctors’ services, prescription drugs, and selective types of hospital care (including “nonemergency use” of emergency rooms).  State officials have long asked for more leeway to impose such charges.  Read more . . .

House to Vote Wednesday on Plan to Suspend Debt Limit until May

House Republicans are moving forward on a plan to suspend enforcement of the federal debt limit through May 18.  This would lift the threat of a government default.  The White House has said that it “would not oppose” this temporary suspension.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) also welcomed the proposal.  Read more . . .