Advocate Summary

Issue:  Smart Growth and Transportation Reauthorization
Advocate:  American Road & Transportation Builders Association – David C. Bauer
Date of Interview: 8/2/02

Basic Background
The best way to describe our approach to the reauthorization of the federal transit and highway programs is to point out the discrepancy between what the federal government says are the needs of the transportation system and what we are currently doing, what federal policies are currently able to achieve. Our objective is to close that differential. For example, it you look at the investment that the federal government is making into surface transportation – by that I mean the transit and highway programs which are reauthorized in the 6 year federal transportation law, there are other issues which we work on but the coming highway bill is a bit of a misnomer because the highway bill does have other things than just highways in it. But just looking explicitly at investment levels the federal government said that based on their report that was released in 2000 but was dated 1999 and it used 1997 data, it said that to simply maintain the physical conditions of the nation’s highway and bridge network, how many potholes on the roads today and the state of disrepair the nation’s bridges are in – to simply maintain that and maintain what’s called “system performance,” in other words travel time which is a measure of congestion, would require 50 billion dollars per year in annual investment, that’s just to prevent any back sliding. Right now in current federal highway investment is 31.8 billion dollars, so that’s an 18 billion dollar differential so our objective is to close that differential. On the transit side the federal government is investing about 7 billion dollars right now and the American Public Transportation Association has said that to meet the needs of the nation’s transit systems that that investment should actually be in the neighborhood of 14 billion dollars; obviously we need to try to close that differential. You could apply that to programmatic as well as to funding issues.  For example it takes on average for any transportation project, highway, airport, transit, between 8 and 10 years simply to go through the environmental review and approval process. So every time you drive around or take the train and see a construction project that is the result of after eight years of government planners and environmental experts reviewing that project. And that is clearly something that can try to be improved upon, for example, one of the things that just goes against common sense is the way that they do it is, for any project you have from 10 to 20 agencies that are involved in the review. Everybody’s got their own role, Fish and Wildlife Service has something to look at, EPA has to look at something, the Department of Transportation – anyway they all do their respective responsibilities sequentially, in other words I do my part it goes to the next guy, it goes to the next guy, it doesn’t change – but they still do it sequentially. One of the things we will point out is if you all did this at the same time, you do your independent work, but you perform it concurrently as opposed to sequentially well that’s going to cut down the amount of time it takes to move these projects through the process. So that’s another way we are trying to address the difference between what reality is and the way things probably should be. 

Prior Activity on the Issue 
[Worked on the previous Transportation reauthorization and generally always work on transportation issues]
Advocacy Activities Undertaken
In the context of the upcoming surface transportation bill, that is a bill that will be debated fairly heavily next year. The current highway and transit program expires September 30th 2003. The uniqueness of these programs is that they stop, you cannot go forward if this reauthorization bill is not in place unlike the federal endangered species act which hasn’t been reauthorized since 1972, well we’re still spending money on the endangered species act, you can’t do that on highways, after this one there is nothing in place. So I’m not pointing out that as an interesting tidbit it effects how we approach this there is a defined window of opportunity that we have to try to make our case. This bill has to, to use a very poor analogy it’s like the Olympics, it comes around every so often and this is your last shot at it until the next one and it’s going to be a couple years before you get a crack at these things. That said, the way we’ve approached this, in the fall of 1999 our members initiated a TEA 21 reauthorization task force which had about a hundred or so of our members and for purposes of background the American Road & Transportation Builders Association represents people who are involved in construction, design, equipment manufacturers, we represent transportation officials probably 20 state departments of transportation and thousands of local county officials and we have a division that is involved in the financing of transportation projects, the wall street firms that want to get involved in this, and companies that manufacture safety products such as signs, guardrails, things like that, we have a research division – Penn State University and a number of other universities across the country that have transportation components of their overall enterprise, and this taskforce brought together members from all aspects of our membership to look at what the transportation development community’s priorities would be for the next reauthorization bill. Admittedly, fall 1999, when a bill’s not going to be up till 2003 seems kind of like you’re really taking a running start at this but. The groups spent about 18 months identifying the priorities – and these are the first hand practitioners of transportation development these are the people who build it, design it, manage it and study it – so what they are able to contribute is really real world experience and recommendations to the folks who sit in Washington and try to articulate what can be done in the next bill. So I think that is an important contribution anyway the members who consisted of our taskforce spend about eighteen months compiling that book which I’ve given you. It is about a 70 page composite of what the overall system looks like today, what the political climate is, what the successes of TEA 21 have been and what we think ought to be changed in the next bill, or developed, or kept the same. So that was really the first thing and we started that in 2000in the winter, late ’99, and it was approved by our board of directors in March of 2001 and we produced the document in June.  So a great deal of time was put into articulating what we think our objectives were for the next bill.  Subsequent to that we have been educating members of Congress, folks from the Bush administration, state departments of transportation, governors and others in the transportation community about our recommendations for the next bill. If you look at this year alone, our organization has testified before Congress on five separate occasions. We have a staff of probably four to five lobbyists who are continually meeting with folks on Capitol Hill and in the administration to discuss this, and you can’t just sit down with a 60 page documents and say let’s talk about this. You take each one periodically and as opportunities present themselves to articulate what our perspective is. At the same time, it is not as if we are just waiting till somebody dings a bell in 2003 to start working on this. There are a number of things, issues included in that report, which we have made significant headway on in the last year and a half since this was published – anything we can achieve in advance of the next bill it is certainly something less we have to work on when we are debating the issues. We also have a grassroots component to our government affairs activity. The best example is earlier this year we had a fly-in of about 100 of our members that came in to meet with their representatives and senators. I think it is always important to have national associations and other folks to go in and talk to members, but it’s still not the same thing as when one of their constituents calls them or writes a letter – that’s clearly something on which we try to capitalize upon. 

Future Advocacy Activities Planned
[No specific activities mentioned will continue to be active throughout the reauthorization debate]

Key Congressional Contact(s)/Champions
Our primary interactions are with the House and Senate Transportation committees. They are the ones that have jurisdiction over this bill, even though we represent a broad base in the transportation community and are intermodally focused we’re still transportation exclusive. So our primary interaction is with the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the Senate Commerce Science and Transportation, they have jurisdiction over the aviation programs and the Environment and Public Works has jurisdiction over the highway programs.  The Senate Banking Committee has jurisdiction over transit. So there are three committees in the Senate and they are all consolidated in the House T&I. The interesting thing about these programs is that even though you have a six year bill, you still have to get them funded every year so that entails constant communication, coordination with the House and Senate Appropriations committees, because those are the ones that write the checks. 

Targets of Direct Lobbying
[The members of the above committees are both supporters and targets]

Targets of Grassroots Lobbying
[No specific targets mentioned though grassroots were employed]

Coalition Partners: Names/Participants
Our association co-chairs a coalition of 27 national construction associations, labor unions, it’s called the Transportation Construction Coalition, we established it in 1996 to prepare for what was then the reauthorization of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, that reauthorization bill became TEA 21. That was a coalition of people in our community that have similar if not exact same agendas as ours to present a united front from this community to folks on Capitol Hill an in the executive branch. We also worked very closely with the state departments of transportation they have an association called the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. We work with the US Chamber of Commerce and our president is the chairman of a transportation coalition the Chamber of Commerce heads, in June of last year the initiated what’s called the American’s for Transportation Mobility. We work very closely with the American Public Transportation Association, because as I said previously our members are involved in transit as well as highway projects so we have shared objectives with the transit community as well.  

Other Participants in the Issue Debate
None mentioned.

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence
There are a great many issues on which we have to work, so you have a different point for each one, I can give you a laundry list and tell you what all the arguments are but in general a broad statement about what we’re trying to do is improve the nation’s transportation infrastructure network. And the arguments that are made, in no rank order; the contribution of transportation infrastructure to the economic health of the nation, the quality of life of the American people, the safety of people who utilize the transportation system and the environmental benefits of it. And each of those arguments or points are articulated in that book, and are applicable in virtually every instance on which we are advocating our position.

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence
[See below – arguments tailored to the issue]

Targeted Arguments, Targets, and Evidence
I would say that our arguments are consistent no matter whom we are speaking with it may be tailored given an individual issue. For example, I’ll describe two things which have been consuming a significant amount of our time this year. First is there was a proposal earlier this year in the Bush administration’s budget to reduce highway investment by 8.7 billion dollars, and it’s not as if the administration was just like “oh we’re going to cut highway spending” highway revenues are linked to federal motor fuels tax and other highway user fees. As a result of the economic downturn in 2001 and the events of September 11th a lot of people didn’t travel as much, as a result revenues into the trust fund we significantly below what they had been in previous years. And in trying to address that particular dilemma the points that we really made were that the economic ramification of a 27 percent cut in highway investment. Specifically the point was made, as the country was trying to get out of what was then an economic recession what is now probably best described as economic uncertainty – cutting highway investment would result, by that magnitude, would result in a loss of 350,000 jobs. Every billion dollars in highway investment sustains 50,000 jobs, and given this environment is this a policy the federal government, lawmakers and the administration, want to advocate? To force the loss of 350,000 jobs. In addition, as the nation is trying to get out of this economic quagmire the efficiency of transportation is going to become even more important. If you look at just-in-time-delivery, the transport of goods from their manufacturing plants to their retail outlets, if that is unpredictable given an infrastructure network that is in disrepair that is going to impede economic recovery. So in that instance it was largely an economic argument. On another issue relating to the tax treatment of alternative fuels, there is an alternative fuel that is made with a product called ethanol produced from corn, and it can be combined with gasoline to make a fuel that can propel an automobile however because the federal government is trying to promote the use of alternative fuels to improve the environment and scale back our reliance of foreign oil there is a tax incentive that is provided for that product.  That tax incentive however for ethanol fuels results in forgone revenues to the highway trust fund about 1.3 billion dollars per year. In trying to rectify that situation, to fund a solution that allows the government to support alternative fuels without enforcing decreased investment in highway and transit improvements we are largely making an equity argument. Specifically that a car or truck that travels the nations roads, and is using ethanol based fuels places the same wear and tear on the road as a car utilizing straight gasoline. As a result those individuals should contribute the same amount to the maintenance of the system as everybody else. That is really the premise of the user fee financing system we have in the nation’s transportation network – you use it you pay for it, and right now, people that utilize that fuel, it’s not their fault, their just choosing to use that fuel but because of federal policy, are not contributing the same degree as everybody else to the system. So what you have there is the government is perpetuating a choice between promoting alternative fuels versus maintaining the transportation system. In that instance obviously the economic and safety arguments have a role in this but really the distraction on that particular issue is an equity one. So our arguments are really more tailored to the individual issue as opposed to the individual to whom we are speaking. But in certain instances you do have to tailor you argument to you audience. In talking with appropriators you obviously have to be a bit more focused on acknowledging the budgetary ramifications and constraints and the world in which they deal, than you do when you are talking to the authorizing committees. But the underlying arguments about transportation benefits and importance remain the same. 

Nature of the Opposition
Transportation is unique, I mean can you think of any people that are anti-transportation? I mean most people use it in some degree. If you look at what has arguable been a extremely partisan and contentious environment in the last 6 or 7 years, there are very few issues that are consistently bipartisan, transportation – we get support from Democrats, Republicans, Independents. A great example of this is, the current Secretary of Transportation, he is the one Democrat in the Bush administration cabinet and he is fond of saying, there are no Democratic or Republican roads. So we really don’t have explicit opposition. The constraint which we continually have, this is a spending program, I think it is investment as opposed to just throwing money away, but there is a budgetary constraint that effects all spending programs so part of the opposition we face is to point out that this is a unique program and that it is user fee financed and the revenue is generated by the users of the system and so should be used for transportation improvement programs. There are some specifically on the budgetary side, I wouldn’t say they are particularly opposed, some of the members of the House and Senate Budget committees are some of the strongest supporters of transportation in the Congress, but that said they have to look at a world that balances all federal programs. And our job is to demonstrate the uniqueness of transportation programs. I mean opposition, I think there have been some in the environmental community that have made the determination that any highway project is bad for the environment and the federal data completely refutes that but it’s good rhetoric for them and red meat for the people they represent and that’s fine but I think that there were people in the extreme environmental community that would suggest that there’s no such thing as a good highway project, but I don’t think they are given any credibility in Congress certainly they don’t have credibility with the American people when they say there’s no such thing as a good highway, because I think most people use highways to a certain extent and everybody uses and purchases products that have been transported over the nation’s highway system. That said I would never say that transportation projects shouldn’t try to be environmentally responsible there are extensive processes set up to ensure the environmental responsibility of projects and I think that those points need to be emphasized. But once again I think that is a pretty extreme view and I don’t think many people share it it’s just sort of out there. 

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition 
Not applicable.

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition
Not applicable.

Targeted Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition (and Targets)
Not applicable.

Described as a Partisan Issue
No

Venue(s) of Activity
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, 
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee 
Senate Commerce and Transportation
Senate Banking Committee

Action Pending or Taken by Relevant Decision Makers
None mentioned.

Policy Objective(s) and Support for/Opposition to the Status Quo
Working to change the status quo, working for more highway and transit funding.

Advocate’s Experience: Tenure in Current Job/Previous Experience
I’ve been here for five years, before here I spent seven years on the staff of my home state’s Senator from Oregon Mark Hatfield, he was chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and he also chaired the Transportation appropriations subcommittee, so I did transportation work for him. He retired voluntarily, some retire involuntarily or they get beat. And after working for him I came here.

Reliance on Research: In-House/External (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
We have a staff here of 8 economists, two of them are Ph.D.s, and they perform exceptional research that is relied upon by people on Capitol Hill and folks in our community not just members of our association. The policies on which we advocate are almost always empirically based, there is an empirical basis for all these arguments. And I think that is something that is important in today’s government affairs environment. When I go back home to Oregon folks are like “oh yeah lobbyists, you go and buy fancy dinners for members of Congress and their staff to get them to do what you want” well I guess that’s a romanticized way of looking at things but that’s just not reality. Reality is that the way we advocate our priorities is to demonstrate the empirical basis of our recommendations, provide facts which demonstrate the benefits from enacting the policies which we advocate, couple that with an aggressive inside the beltway and outside in the real world public relations campaigns as well as grassroots activism and our greatest strength which is constant and direct lobbying. It is a compilation of all of those things which I think have to be employed to be successful, if anybody thinks you can accomplish your goals by sending in a couple of emails or writing a PAC check is not dealing in a world in which I have to live.   

Number of Individuals Involved in Advocacy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
Five.

Units in Organization Involved in Public Affairs/Policy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
We are pretty focused in one area, if you take – here’s an example - the US Chamber of Commerce that’s a huge organization and they have a great number of issues so they have to segment. We’re transportation. We have one lobbyist that focuses almost exclusively on environmental issues, clean air act, streamlining the environmental review process, there are two of us who focus on funding and we all have some involvement in other programmatic changes, and we have a safety person. But all of these issues are so intertwined we don’t have the luxury of saying this one person does this. We are a small organization four people to advocate on Capitol Hill is not a huge amount. Other organizations, most groups have one or two people on transportation. Give the broad issues within transportation the opportunity for explicit specialization just isn’t there, they are so intertwined you can’t really talk about funding without being able to talk about how the money is going to be used. So just focusing on budgetary issues is myopic in that if you ever get into a situation where you have to talk about that you are probably going to have to talk about how the funding is used. You really can’t talk about ideas for new programs without being able to articulate where you are going to get the money. SO we do have some specialization but our president’s belief is that all staff here should be interchangeable particularly given our focus. We have a total of about thirty in the office.  

Advocate’s Outstanding Skills/Assets (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
None mentioned. 

Type of Membership: None, Institutions, Individuals, Both (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
Individuals

Membership Size (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Organizational Age (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Miscellaneous