After an agreement was reached on provisions to ensure the road safety of trucks entering the U.S. from Mexico, conferees moved quickly to finalize the bill (H.R. 2299) last week. It was passed by the House Wednesday by a 371-11 vote, and the Senate approved the measure on Tuesday by 97-2. The shift of RABA funding away from the states alarmed members of House and Senate authorizing committees, who are looking for ways to undo the action in other legislation (see below).

In all, about $1 billion of the $4.5 billion available in RABA was directed for specific projects listed in the bill. There were winners and losers among discretionary programs as well, as some programs were appropriated much more funding than was authorized, while many discretionary programs were not funded at all.

Under the RABA provisions contained in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), states were to receive $3.9 billion in RABA funding, while the remaining $500 million in RABA was to be shared among 38 allocated programs. For the first time since passage of TEA-21, congressional appropriators shifted a sizable amount of RABA funding from the states' formula distribution, $423 million, for selected projects. The action resulted in states receiving more than 10 percent less of their RABA shares, with California and Texas collectively taking a $71 million loss in RABA formula distribution.

At the same time, appropriators zeroed out funding for 21 allocated programs, shifting the remaining RABA funding for selected programs. This included $236.7 million for special projects listed in TEA-21, along with $13.9 million zeroed out for the emergency relief program.

In separate committee action in the Senate Appropriations Committee, however, RABA funding was restored for three of the zeroed-out projects, inserted into the FY 2002 Defense Appropriations bill, according to CQ Daily Monitor. They were $29 million for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, $5 million for Interstate 405 in Washington State, and $300,000 for the widening of U.S. Highway 61 in Mississippi. The Senate also proposes to add an additional earmark to the Transportation and Community and System Preservation Program.

Other allocated programs in the transportation appropriations bill received a huge boost in funding, in many cases raising their overall funding levels much higher than what was authorized in TEA-21. For example, the Corridors and Borders program and the Transportation and Community and System Preservation Pilot Program, which would have received $17.5 million and $3.3 million respectively in RABA funding under TEA-21, received a $334 million and $247 million boost in RABA funding.

Other programs receiving RABA increases include ferry boats (by $20.5 million); interstate maintenance discretionary (by $76 million); bridge discretionary (by $62.4 million); and public lands (by $90 million).

A copy of charts released by the Federal Highway Administration outlining the state-by-state impacts from the reduction in RABA and the impacts on discretionary programs is attached.

A total of $144 million in General Fund appropriations also were added for specific projects identified in the bill.

Overall, the Federal Highway Administration is funded at $32.9 billion, with a $31.8 billion obligation ceiling. About $3.712 billion is included for priority projects, minimum guarantee and the federal lands program.

The bill also includes $10 million in obligation authority to fund certain research programs, including LTPP and Superpave. This diminishes the requirement to draw on funding from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program to supplement the Federal Highway Administration's research funding.

Transportation Committees Lament Earmarking

The extent of earmarking in the transportation spending bill, and the use of RABA funding for projects, drew the ire of House and Senate transportation committees this week. Committee members complained that there was little timeto review the bill before it came up for a floor vote, and said earmarking by appropriators circumvented the authorizing committees' authority.

On November 30, House Highways and Transit Subcommittee chairman Thomas Petri (R-WI) released a statement slamming appropriators for the use of RABA funding for projects. "RABA was not created to be a slush fund for appropriators," Petri said. "For this committee to take nearly $1 billion of these funds to earmark for projects they deem desirable -- on top of the fact that they already earmarked all pre-RABA discretionary funds - should not happen. This should not be a precedent for future years."

According to the CQ Daily Monitor, reactions were equally strong in the Senate, with Environment and Public Works ranking member Robert Smith (R-NH) calling the bill "a total distortion of the process, rendering the authorizing committees totally useless." Chairman Jim Jeffords (I-VT) asserted that he would discuss the matter with appropriators.

Authorizers maintained that they would look for ways to undo the earmarking in other legislation.

Other Programs

The FY 2002 transportation spending bill fully funds the transit program at $6.747 billion, with $3.542 billion provided for formula grants, $1.13 billion each for new starts and fixed guideway systems. A total of $125 million was provided for the job access and reverse commute program.

The Federal Aviation Administration is funded at $13.3 billion, with $3.3 billion provided for the airport improvement program. As occurred last year, numerous airport projects are earmarked to received funding. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member James Oberstar (D-MN) protested the earmarks on the House floor last week.

State transportation officials were warned of the possibility by Federal Highway Administrator Mary Peters and also by Janet Oakley, AASHTO Director of Government Relations, during briefings Sunday at a meeting of the AASHTO Board of Directors.

Peters cautioned that there is a possibility of a "negative RABA" for the upcoming budget year. The Revenue Aligned Budget Authority provision of TEA-21 changes highway allocations either up or down, depending on income to the Highway Trust Fund. RABA funding has steadily increased since the first year of implementation. However, an early snapshot of Highway Trust Fund income has indicated a decline in Trust Fund revenues.

Oakley said that as a result, FHWA may be forced to reduce outlays by about $1.5 billion. That could translate into a reduction in federal-aid highwya programs in FY 2003 of as much as $2.5 billion. Calling RABA a "double-edged sword," Oakley said that the final outcome will depend on the Treasury Department's analysis late in December.

Oakley also expressed serious concern that Congress may reopen the "firewalls" under the Budget Enforcement Act next year, as it considers the continuation of budget caps. The firewalls, enacted as part of TEA-21, prevent money in the Highway Trust Fund from being used for any purposes other than transportation, or as budgetary offsets for other spending.

The defense bill will likely be the last FY 2002 spending bill to be considered by Congress this year, and efforts to attach additional funding for security purposes threaten to stall quick consideration by the Senate. The president has threatened a veto if the language is added. This week, a sixth continuing resolution was passed to keep the government in operation until December 15.

Republican senators, who say they can sustain a veto, succeeded in throwing two procedural hurdles in front of the Democratic attempts to to add $15 billion to the $20 billion in security funding and disaster response that will be added to the defense bill. The $15 billion, drafted by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), includes $7.5 billion for security activities, including some funds for airport-security improvements, and $7.5 billion for recovery activities in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, sites of terrorism. Democratic efforts to add the funds are expected to continue.

Senate leaders avoided deadlock over a stimulus package when an agreement was reached to form a bicameral leadership conference to negotiate details of the bill. At press time, both Republicans and Democrats were working to get their priorities incorporated.

Prospects for a stimulus package improved this week when House Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) offered a package to give relief to workers who lost jobs after March 15 of this year - the date pegged as the start of the current economic recession. A proposal for a payroll tax holiday also appears to be gaining backing.

However, underlying disagreements still could derail the effort. Republican and Democratic members still are attempting to strike a balance between corporate tax relief and financial and health-care support for displaced workers.

Legislators approved a plan to increase benefits, reduce company payroll taxes and permit a portion of the retirement funds to be invested in stocks and non-government bonds. Supporters of the bill claim those steps are necessary to ensure the long-term viability of the retirement system. The plan would allow private-sector investments that are expected to yield higher rates of return than the government bonds the retirement fund must currently invest in.

The measure now moves on to conference, where House and Senate members will attempt to iron out the differences between the two chambers.

In her first address to the Board of Directors as FHWA Administrator, Peters outlined her intentions, saying "People need to have choices, not mandates. This is not a social policy agency, it's a transportation agency and we need to grasp that now." She noted that as one of her first steps with FHWA, she had attempted to assess the "rightness of our direction at FHWA." Input from AASHTO and other industry and stakeholder organizations was considered during a two-day retreat that developed the following priority focus areas:

• Safety and security - Peters said that the highway system had performed well following the September 11 tragedy, when all aviation services were shut down. Regarding highway safety, Peters said that the annual loss of life on the nation's highways -- more than 40,000 fatalities -- equaled the entire population of Flagstaff, Arizona. Reducing that toll, she said, "is our business and we must do something about it." She also noted the importance of work-zone safety and close coordination with emergency- response personnel.
• Environmental streamlining - Calling the topic "a soapbox issue for me," Peters said that "we can improve processes and still be respectful of the environment. We are not jack-booted thugs who will pave over Bambi and the entire world. We will work with others to resolve these issues. The failure to resolve them has not been a staff issue. They have worked hard. It's a leadership issue. And we will lead."
• Stewardship and accountability - Peters said that accountability for the proper use of federal funds is another key priority, adding "We promise to do this with you, not to you."
• Congestion - Congestion and bottlenecks waste time, money, and productivity, so capacity issues be addressed, Peters said.
• Reauthorization - Peters said that FHWA is at work developing proposals for the reauthorization of the federal-aid highway program. She cited concerns including preservation of the firewalls, preservation of minimum guarantees and flexibility as key priorities, adding that the FHWA will also examine such issues as the appropriate federal role.

Kranz described the development of the nation's space program, sparked by the dream of President John Kennedy to place a man on the moon. He noted that "our mistakes were violent" including the explosion of two early missiles.

The election took place Sunday, December 2 at the Board of Directors meeting of the AASHTO Annual Meeting in Fort Worth, Texas. AASHTO's President for 2001, Transportation Secretary E. Dean Carlson of Kansas, handed the gavel over to Mallory during the meeting's closing luncheon on Tuesday.

Mallory said his emphasis areas for the coming year will be reauthorization of the six-year federal highway financing bill; environmental stewardship, including streamlining of environmental safeguards in transportation construction; and safety and security measures.

Mallory has served as PennDOT's Secretary since 1995. Emphasizing customer-driven service, Mallory - who has also served PennDOT as Director of Strategic Planning and as Deputy Secretary for Aviation, Rail Freight and Ports and Waterways - has overseen the reengineering of nearly 30 core business activities in the agency.

Mallory, a lawyer who has served most of his career in PennDOT management jobs, has championed such steps as the Agility Program, which helps PennDOT and local governments step over jurisdictional barriers to get work done and save money; an on-time, on-budget construction program that has invested more than $1 billion in major highway projects each year since 1997, a pavement smoothness on interstates that exceeds national figures, and an internal management overhaul based on the Malcolm Baldrige business criteria.

Codell has served as Secretary of Transportation for the Commonwealth of Kentucky since October, 1996. He is chief administrator for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet's 6,000 employees, and oversees a $1.4 billion budget. Codell manages all aspects of transportation, including construction and maintenance of highway facilities and vehicle regulation. He has been a proponent of speedy and safe road-construction innovations and context-sensitive design that matches highway characteristics to local settings and needs, and spearheaded the first 511 traveler information system in the nation to become publicly accessible.

Also elected were members of the AASHTO Executive Committee. All voting members are officers of state departments of transportation. In addition to Mallory and Codell, it includes AASHTO Secretary-Treasurer Larry King of Pennsylvania and eight transportation department chiefs. Four of them will serve one-year terms - Joseph Boardman of New York, Bruce Saltsman of Tennessee, Kirk Brown of Illinois and Joseph Perkins of Alaska - while the other four will serve two-year terms. They are Fred Van Kirk of West Virginia, Henry Hungerbeeler of Missouri and Tom Stephens of Nevada; a fourth two-year member remains to be named.

Mallory, who has chaired the Reauthorization Steering Committee in his role as AASHTO's Vice President, said a literal "army of volunteers" has been at work during the past year on a wide range of transportation issues relative to the upcoming consideration of "TEA-3". He noted that the reauthorization effort will be unlike prior ones, with "different funding issues, different members of Congress, and a new priority for security." Mallory pointed out that one-quarter of the members of Congress were not in office when TEA-21 was enacted, and that education will be a key priority.

Mallory said the job of building and sustaining coalitions in support of the new bill "is formidable" and that several major events will be held in the next year to aid in that goal. AASHTO is planning a series of regional forums on transportation, as well as forums focusing on key roles of transportation, such as economic benefits, access issues for an aging population, meeting the needs of agriculture and highlighting the overall benefits of transportation.

He outlined the process by which the AASHTO Board of Directors will consider policy recommendations for the bill at its spring meeting in April, with final adoption at the October, 2002 Annual Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.

Prior to the just-concluded annual meeting, Mallory chaired a meeting of AASHTO's Reauthorization Steering Committee, which includes representatives from each state. The committee heard briefings from working group leaders including Ken Leonard (Benefits of Transportation); Nancy Ross (Bottom Line Reports); Larry King (Financial Issues); John Carr, (Expediting Program Delivery); Sandy Straehl (Intergovernmental Issues); and Susan Mortel, (Special Issues). Also included in the briefings were presentations on research, operations, ITS and security needs.

The Action Agenda includes the top legislative, regulatory and administrative priorities of the association in a given year. During its December 2 meeting, the Board of Directors approved:

• TEA-21 Implementation and Reauthorization
• Protecting the Highway, Transit and Aviation Funding Guarantees
• Streamlining the Approval of Transportation Projects
• Security
• Air-Quality Conformity and Reauthorization of the Clean Air Act
• State-Local Government Consultation
• Support for Transportation Research
• Work-Zone Safety
• Amtrak
• Ethanol Fuel Tax

Shackelford, former Commissioner of Georgia's DOT, received AASHTO's George S.Bartlett Award, conferred annually upon an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to highway progress.

Shackelford, who began his career as an agricultural extension service agent in Georgia, was so beloved by rural Georgians that at his retirement as Commissioner of Georgia's DOT in May 2000, more than $40,000 was donated in his name to the Georgia 4-H clubs. He is now with Gresham, Smith and Partners.

Shackelford, commissioner in that state from 1991-2000, expanded the agency's purview from highways only to all modes of transportation. He also pushed for a passenger-rail study, helping spur the intercity rail and commuter rail lines that now are in planning. He also worked for improvements to local airports and helped open Savannah's port to the largest ships. During his tenure, Georgia's NAVIGATOR, an intelligent transportation system meant to help motorists avoid bottlenecks, began.

Yarnell, retired from his Post as Chief Engineer for the Missouri DOT, was honored with the Thomas M. McDonald Award for exceptional service. Yarnell was responsible for road and bridge design, statewide construction and maintenance in Missouri.

Yarnell was a major influence in Missouri for 36 years. He started with the department as a designer in 1965. As district engineer for the St. Louis metro area, he helped untangle problems on a $600 million project linking St. Louis and St. Charles counties. In 1998, he became Missouri's chief engineer responsible for road and bridge design, and construction and maintenance statewide. He has helped guide the department through a period of higher usage but dwindling dollars.

Wicks, Delaware's Assistant Chief Engineer, received the Alfred E. Johnson Award for excellence in both engineering and management. She earned her degree in civil engineering from the University of Delaware in 1982 and joined Delaware's DOT shortly thereafter. She also holds a Master's in Public Administration.

Wicks currently supervises the group handling the state's most complex and challenging projects. One is a new 50-mile turnpike linking the state capitol to Wilmington. After more than 30 years of delays, her management team got the road open. Wicks also oversaw a new two-mile riverwalk in Wilmington which used a "brownfield" site previously occupied by the shipbuilding industry during WWII.

Wicks has been a leader in her region's environmental task force, and spearheaded a plan across several groups to ease the problems surrounding an overhaul of I-95.

AASHTO's Francis B. Francois Award for Innovation went to the Florida Department of Transportation's Alternative Contracting Methods Team for its work curbing cost overruns. The award lets the department designate a graduate student to receive a $10,000 academic fellowship at a state university.

AASHTO also honored several other leaders in transportation with the President's Transportation Awards:

• For Administration, the winner was Nevada DOT's Safety and Loss Control chief Jim Pierce, for his work in medical cost-containment and accident prevention;
• For Environment, the Montana project team for the Evaro - Polson U.S. 93 project won, for its context-sensitive work with the Salish and Kootenai tribes in rebuilding the corridor;
• For Highways, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet team that coordinated renovation of I-65 under full closure for two weekends won the award;
• For Highway Traffic Safety, the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department's "Pave the Way" committee won for excellence in communication on a 5-year, 380-mile interstate highway renovation;
• For Intermodal Transportation, the award went to the "Carlink II" team from California, which designed a system that lets public transportation users share a fleet of low-emission vehicles to complete trips at either end of a transit route;
• For Planning, the Virginia DOT's Alternative Transportation and Land-Use Activity Strategies (ATLAS) Study won for coordinating transportation improvements with land-use policy;
• For Public Transportation, the award went to Linda Lovejoy, Public Transit Section Chief of the Wisconsin DOT, for her work helping low-income employees reach their jobs;
• For Quality, the award went to the "Accelerated Program Delivery Project Team" from the Michigan DOT, which worked to speed delivery and save more than $1 billion on the state's $1.5 billion annual construction program;
• For Rail Transportation, Sid Morrison, former CEO of the Washington State DOT, won for his work upgrading passenger rail in Washington and Oregon on the Amtrak Cascade Line, with resulting spikes in ridership;
• For Research, Virginia's "Superpave" improved asphalt-mix deployment team won;
• And for Water Transportation, Doug Matzke of the Maryland Port Administration won for his management and other skills in attracting new business and maintaining existing business in the Port of Baltimore.

Chief Executive Officers of several state departments of transportation - including Secretary Shirley Ybarra of Virginia, whose department dealt with the Sept. 11 terrorist aircraft-bombing of the Pentagon - discussed steps taken by their agencies to prevent terrorist attacks on transportation targets at an AASHTO Annual Meeting roundtable.

Missouri DOT Director Henry Hungerbeeler, who chairs a recently formed AASHTO Task Force on Security, led the session, as more than a dozen CEOs described issues and progress they have made on security organization since Sept. 11.

Ybarra told how her department's Traffic Management Center became the operations center for the Navy's Pentagon recovery effort. The DOT facility was so close to the Pentagon that the plane used by the terrorists to crash into the Pentagon knocked an antenna off the roof of the center, she said.

Its employees quickly reconfigured their computer support to help the Navy convert the space, and Virginia DOT sent heavy equipment, hard hats, and other gear to the disaster site to aid in recovery. The DOT also changed the traffic signal system's operation to facilitate the movement of vehicles in the area. Employees of the center also took in children who were evacuated from a day-care center at the Pentagon and arranged for their safe return to their parents.

In addition to the Pentagon issues, Ybarra noted, Virginia had to deal with possible security threats to several other military facilities including a major naval operation in Newport News and to its network of bridges and tunnels in bay areas. Some of these steps created multi-day traffic jams for regular commuters; talks with military officials helped ease some of those, eventually, through such steps as moving checkpoints inside installation gates, she said.

A move to curb all truck traffic around the Pentagon was scaled back after a VDOT survey revealed that most of that traffic was for the benefit of the Pentagon itself, she said.

Paul Wells, Chief Engineer for the State of New York DOT, said his agency's first concern when two terrorist-commandeered planes struck and took down the World Trade Center towers was for 85 DOT employees who worked there. Ultimately, only three lost their lives, he said - but those losses still caused great grief in the organization.

Wells said that New York DOT had to work closely with many transportation agencies in Manhattan and the region, including separate highway, train and transit agencies. All learned that what they thought were redundant systems - for such purposes as communications - still were not sufficient to survive the scale of what happened at the World Trade Center, Wells said. Loss of records and other support data will delay several New York DOT projects, he said.

Other issues discussed included:

• The need for discretion in making information public that could become a virtual terrorists' handbook - such as states' own assessments of risk;
• The need for new connections among agencies whose dealings previously were relatively limited, such as state DOTs and federal law-enforcers;
• The need for a clear delineation of who has authority to take such steps as closing roads;
• A need for maintenance workers to be trained to be first-line sets of security "eyes" out in the field;
• Additional financial burdens to DOTs;
• The need for planning to include neighboring states.

The District of Columbia asked to participate in the task force. Dan Tangherlini, Acting Director of the District of Columbia Department of Transportation, said the variety of federal agencies attempting to close streets or otherwise change traffic patterns in the district has him interested in seeing that authority delegated to the new federal Office of Homeland Security.

Jeff Morales, Director of the California Department of Transportation, also called for a more organized flow of information from federal sources to state agencies, citing a recent federal warning that California bridges might be at risk that became public. States, now taking appropriate steps to assess short-term risks, eventually need to redirect their attention to longer-term security issues such as designing security into new or renovated infrastructure.

Further, Morales said, state DOTs need to have a clear sense of what their roles are and how they can efficiently fill them. "We're all in a situation now where we could be spending incredible amounts of money" and have to determine where that does, or does not, make sense.

Carlos Braceras, Deputy Director of the Utah Department of Transportation, noted his agency is working closely with federal agencies to ensure the security of the upcoming 2002 Winter Olympics. But he also noted that a bomb threat against a highway shortly before Sept. 11 highlighted the need for better communications with local communities and law enforcement. Those areas have improved significantly, he said.

Transportation response to the September 11 attack was also highlighted at a general session on Tuesday, moderated by James Weinstein, Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Transportation. Weinstein said that the event has "changed our focus" adding that "what happened is really one of the great rescue stories of this country. . . .While many lives were lost, the system worked, and as an industry we ought to be proud."

Mary Peters, Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration and former director of the Arizona Department of Transportation, presented her colleagues: Jenna Dorn, Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, Allan Rutter, Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, and Joseph Clapp, Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Peters said Secretary Norm Mineta does not want his modal administrators to think in "single-mode terms" and that a surface transportation team has been formed, which she termed the "Surfers." That group, she said, is working together on "high-end issues" such as congestion, intermodal connections, streamlining and TEA-21 reauthorization. She referred to post-September 11 as the "new normal" and described the creation of the new Transportation Security Agency.

Dorn echoed Peters' comments on teamwork, and focused her remarks on security and responsiveness. Quoting Immanuel Kant on the need to "think in different terms," Dorn said the days of "monopoly modes" are over and that state DOTs should think of themselves as the "mobility managers" of their states. "Transit," said Dorn, "cannot work well without good highways. And highways cannot work well without good transit." Dorn offered several examples of cities and states undertaking innovative approaches to coordinating highways and transit.

FRA's Rutter focused on four issue areas: national passenger rail policy, high-speed rail development, TEA-21 reauthorization and safety issues.

"Amtrak," said Rutter, "is in bad shape." He said many states are involved with delivery of passenger-rail services and should be involved in developing new ways to deliver services. Rutter said that effort should be devoted to developing "incremental and practical" high-speed rail corridors.

Rutter expects rail-commuter, Amtrak, high-speed and freight-- to be part of the TEA-21 reauthorization discussion on congestion relief. He also thinks there should be a "big push on grade-crossing programs" in reauthorization.

Joseph Clapp, the first Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said he had three highest priorities: "Open the border, open the border, and open the border." He described what steps FMCSA is taking to implement the recently passed border-crossing legislation, and emphasized the importance of working with the states.

Clapp also detailed FMCSA activities to increase trucking security. Clapp said 100 lives are lost weekly in commercial vehicle accidents. While inspections show improving vehicle condition, it is necessary to focus closely on the relatively small number of drivers who behave irresponsibly, he said.