Last week’s election results change the outlook for metropolitan transportation primarily through the Republican ascension in the U.S. Senate.  The 108th Congress will be seated nine months before the current federal transportation funding law – TEA-21 – expires.  Thus, a major job for Congress in 2003 will be crafting a new transportation bill.  At stake is billions in federal transportation assistance.

The region has been counting not only on the important formula funds the federal government distributes for highways and transit, but also on special funding to advance huge undertakings like the Second Avenue subway and a second New Jersey-Manhattan commuter rail tunnel.

Getting all the region needs from the federal government was looking tough enough before the election.  Indeed, at the Rudin Center/Wagner School transit conference in Manhattan two weeks ago (see MTR #389), U.S. DOT assistant secretary Emil Frankel told the audience not to expect a transportation funding increase anywhere near that seen (in the neighborhood of 40%) when TEA-21 succeeded ISTEA in 1998.The metropolitan region’s delegation had also lost considerable seniority on key Senate committees since 1998, and northeastern House delegations continue to erode under the weight of Sunbelt population growth.  When the TEA-21 law was crafted, the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which drafts mass transit legislation for the Senate, was headed by New York’s Al D’Amato. 

With the Bush administration now likely emboldened to pursue its tax cut agenda, the federal deficit and budget pressure on non-military programs is almost certain to grow.  Those poised to take important Senate committee leadership posts beginning in January are unlikely to have our region’s best interests at heart.  Oklahoma’s James Inhofe is set to chair the Environment and Public Works Committee, which will write the bulk of the “TEA-3” bill.  Inhofe is quite far to the right, is known for his vitriol and uncompromising positions and has reportedly compared the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestapo.

Alabama’s Richard Shelby is said to be ready to lead the Banking Committee.  In 1999, less than a year after the conclusion of 18 months of national debate on TEA-21’s apportionment formulas, Shelby introduced legislation to change federal mass transit allocations.  Shelby’s provision, inserted into an appropriation bill, would have stripped $320 million annually from New York and California and distributed it evenly among the other 48 states (MTR #222).NY and CA account for over 50% of U.S. transit users, but receive about 30% of federal transit funding under TEA-21.Senators Schumer and Moynihan, with their California colleagues, had to threaten to filibuster the appropriations bill in order to defeat Shelby’s move. 

Highway groups are also likely to press their “environmental streamlining” agenda more strongly than ever as they sense increased momentum behind a broad anti-environmental agenda in Washington.

Still, the region’s Senators are heavily represented on the committees that will draft TEA-3.Senators Clinton, Corzine and Lieberman now sit on Environment and Public Works.  Democrats will lose a seat on the panel, and some other shuffling may occur.  Senator Lautenberg is said to be interested in a transportation post, but it’s unclear that two NJ Democrats will be represented on EPW.  Senators Schumer, Dodd and Corzine sit on the Banking Committee, but there too, Democrats will lose a seat.

Surface Transportation Policy Project

Conference Assembles Transit Chiefs (Oct. 28, 2002)

New York Ambushed in D.C. Transit $ Raid (May 28, 1999)

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