MTR 162, Mobilizing the Nation

Mobilizing the Region

Issue 162

February 20, 1998

Mobilizing the Nation

Senator Robert Torricelli of New Jersey was the initial witness before the President's Commission to Study Capital Budgeting, which convened its first meeting at the end of January. Torricelli said the federal government should have separate capital and operating budgets like most states do. Because inclusion of infrastructure spending in the unified federal budget results in systematically weak capital investment because big, long-term projects are hard pressed to compete with immediate demands and were ripe targets for budget cutters, according to the Senator "The nation has ignored for more than a generation its physical infrastructure, and we do so at our peril." The Commission is to spend a year studying the question of a separate federal capital budget. Courier News

NYC Congressman Jerrold Nadler has become the chair of the House Transit Caucus, a voluntary Congressional organization of 29 Members of Congress. Nadler sits on the House Transportation Committee and its Subcommittee on Railroads.

On Monday, the Republican Governors Association wrote to Congressional leaders stating that early action on a multi-year reauthorization of ISTEA was critical to U.S. economic health. The Governors also urged that Congress find a way to increase investment in transportation by spending balances in the federal transportation trust funds, which are sustained by federal gas tax collections. At present, a large balance is kept in the trust fund to help balance the federal budget.

Early in February, Transportation Commissioners from most northeast states and from California, Oregon, Washington, West Virginia, Illinois, Hawaii and Alaska wrote to U.S. Senate leaders, urging defeat of amendments to ISTEA-II that would peg federal transit assistance to states on federal gas tax collections in those states. The commissioners pointed out that such a change in federal transit policy would penalize states and metropolitan areas that have developed successful transit programs: "successful transit service lowers gas consumption and gas tax collections and also reduces air pollution."