Transportation News for April 27, 2015

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Transportation News for April 27, 2015
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POLITICO Morning Transportation for 4/27/2015

By JENNIFER SCHOLTES, with help from Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

SUGGESTION BOX STILL OPEN FOR TRANSPORTATION FUNDING STRATEGY: It’s the same refrain: just buy a little time with a temporary extension and a long-term plan will materialize before funding and authority run out again. But with a May 31 deadline approaching for expiration of transportation policy, it doesn’t appear lawmakers have even reached agreement on the length of another short-term patch. Our Heather Caygle reports that some legislators are floating the idea of passing a clean policy extension into the summer, aligning expiration with the point at which the Highway Trust Fund will need a refill. Others say they could pass a combo of authority and funding for a six-month stint or even through year’s end. “But nothing is concrete, as shown by a quick chat with a handful of Republicans on the House and Senate tax-writing committees,” Heather reports: http://politico.pro/1b4Sz3V
PORT TRUCK DRIVERS ANNOUNCE STRIKE INTENTIONS THIS MORNING: Port truck drivers out in southern California will say this morning whether they will strike over their classification as independent contractors. Pro’s Marianne LeVine reports: “In addition, the drivers are circulating a petition calling on Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia to address what they say is the misclassification of port truck drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. This battle began in 2012 with a lawsuit and gained traction the following year when drivers working for Green Fleet Systems, Pacific 9 Transportation, and American Logistics International went on strike several times.”

THIS WEEK: Cabinet officials and congressional leaders will be bopping around town this week talking about infrastructure investment, answering to Washington audiences filled with folks growing increasingly impatient with their commitments to reaching a long-term transportation funding solution now that expiration of highway and transit policy looms a month away.

Today — Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew speak this morning at an event hosted by Bloomberg Government. The department heads will be joined by former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour and a leader in the infrastructure industry. http://bit.ly/1Gbw2Le

Out in Portland, members of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association delve into the second day of their conference on transportation financing and charging for road usage. Rep. Earl Blumenauer kicked off that conference yesterday with a speech about the need for Congress to come up with a long-term solution for filling the Highway Trust Fund, as well as his proposals to increase the gas tax and to order a study of mileage-based fee systems. http://bit.ly/1FpiY9c

Police officers from around the country meet in Rockville this morning, talking about the role of drones in law enforcement during a workshop at an Institute for Defense and Government Analysis conference. http://bit.ly/1Ea5PPg

IT’S MONDAY — LET’S DO THIS: Good morning and thanks for reading POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on trains, planes, automobiles and ports.

Reach out: @jascholtes or jscholtes@politico.com.

“Well she might’ve took my car keys, but she forgot about my old John Deere.” http://bit.ly/1FzuAI2

** A message from the Auto Care Association: The auto care industry is a coast-to-coast network of more than 500,000 independent manufacturers, distributors, parts stores and repair shops that keep every motorist moving. Our four million employees generate 2.3 percent of America’s gross domestic product. Our network delivers products at the speed that keeps America’s cars on the road. autocare.org **

THE REST OF THE WEEK:

Tuesday — House T&I Chairman Bill Shuster talks about infrastructure development in a discussion hosted by National Journal LIVE: http://bit.ly/1CR4dt0. The FAA’s special rules coordinator for drones, Robert Pappas, speaks at a forum on civil drone policy at CSIS, sitting alongside leaders from the ACLU and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International: http://bit.ly/1JITuCK. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s chief, Mark Rosekind, talks about strategies for raising the low completion rate for recalls, kicking off a workshop on the issue: http://1.usa.gov/1dhNGGv.

On Capitol Hill, Adm. Paul F. Zukunft, the head of the Coast Guard, testifies about his service’s resources before the Senate Commerce’s subcommittee that oversees his agency: http://1.usa.gov/1GwedJG. And the Senate Commerce subcommittee that deals with aviation issues holds its third hearing this month on reauthorizing the FAA, this time talking to the FAA’s associate administrator for aviation safety and NTSB chairman Christopher Hart, as well as those who represent airlines and pilots: http://1.usa.gov/1zbBmBp.

A biennial tradition, the FAA calls a three-day meeting out in Reston of the forum tasked with designing aeronautical charts, as well as influencing flight information products and air traffic control initiatives: http://1.usa.gov/1J20HOh. The American Traffic Safety Services Association begins its two-day legislative briefing and Capitol Hill fly-in at the Liaison Capitol Hill Hotel near Union Station: http://bit.ly/1JIVnzc.

Wednesday — Looking into vulnerabilities the “gyrocopter” incident exposed, the House Oversight Committee holds a hearing on securing D.C.’s airspace: http://1.usa.gov/1Kmd8VY. The Senate Banking Committee holds a hearing on opportunities for private investment in public infrastructure, with testimony from city development officials, as well as an infrastructure firm leader: http://1.usa.gov/1Ju2Buq. The House T&I Subcommittee on Highways and Transit holds a hearing on truck and bus safety programs: http://1.usa.gov/1KmaH5Z.

The Senate Commerce Committee holds a hearing on lessons learned from response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill: http://1.usa.gov/1HJ7FJc. The American Traffic Safety Services Association wraps up its legislative briefing and Capitol Hill fly-in: http://bit.ly/1JIVnzc. The FAA presses on with its meeting on aeronautical charts: http://1.usa.gov/1J20HOh.

Thursday — TSA’s acting administrator Melvin Carraway testifies before a House Homeland Security panel about airport access controls: http://1.usa.gov/1JIVwTr. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration encourages people to tweet about distracted driving using the hashtag #justdrive: http://bit.ly/1EH4pPn. The FAA wraps up its meeting on aeronautical charting: http://1.usa.gov/1J20HOh.

Friday — The House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations holds a hearing on the Railroad Retirement Board’s controls for protecting against fraud: http://1.usa.gov/1GneSdP.

SHUSTER’S AIRLINE-INDUSTRY TIES THREATENING HIS LEGISLATIVE PULL? The latest eyebrow-raiser in the tale of House T&I Chairman Bill Shuster’s relationship with a top airline lobbyist could make it even more difficult for the congressman to cull consensus among his peers for anything aviation-related now that his work on the Travel Transparency Act is being questioned. POLITICO reports that the chairman swiftly guided the bill through his committee and through passage on the floor last year after asking Rep. Tom Graves to let him shepherd the legislation, which would allow airlines to advertise the base price of a ticket without including fees and taxes — a paramount priority for Airlines for America, the lobby shop his girlfriend, Shelley Rubino, helps lead.

Tangled timelines: Shuster’s own talking points for passing the legislation were strikingly familiar to those A4A put out. And his panel used very similar graphics to advocate for the bill, illustrating federal airfare taxes with a fake boarding pass, using the same base price, boarding time, ticket number and fictional passenger name. “Privately … many members have described the chairman’s relationship with Rubino as unseemly and said they were surprised that committee members were being lobbied by his now-acknowledged girlfriend. As the airfare legislation was gaining traction, Shuster’s marriage was crumbling. … At the same time Rebecca Shuster was filing divorce papers, Bill Shuster filed a document with his office stating that he was dating Rubino and that she would not lobby him or his staff.” http://politico.pro/1GmzP8N

Primary challenge: Back home in Pennsylvania, other Republicans may be plotting Shuster’s ouster. Pro’s Kevin Robillard reports that Tom Smith, a wealthy businessman who made a failed bid for Senate in 2012, is considering running against Shuster in the GOP primary. “Smith told Campaign Pro ‘several people’ — including Shuster’s 2014 primary opponent, Art Halvorson — have approached him about running. Halvorson and Smith met this morning, and Halvorson said he planned to back Smith.” http://politico.pro/1bv37K1

SLOW THAT CABOOSE, EH?: Through an emergency order, the Canadian government is barring unit trains carrying dangerous goods from driving over 40 mph when traveling through urban areas. The government is also requiring more inspections and risk assessments along certain routes used to transport goods such as crude oil and ethanol. Our Kathryn A. Wolfe has the details: http://politico.pro/1I4Wnzq

MOTOR CITY’S RESURGENCE: Out in Detroit, a city still reeling from bankruptcy and the financial hardships of the American auto industry, investors and urban pioneers are making their way. Susan Ager, writing for National Geographic Magazine, explains that Motor City “is cool again” but still faces major economic challenges: “Once, men and women flocked to Detroit from the cotton fields of the South for well-paying automobile factory jobs. … Blue-collar jobs can still be had in the city’s three remaining auto plants, but most require advanced skills. Scores of tech start-ups in the new city do too. That leaves Detroit with a big obstacle to its rebound: the highest unemployment rate among the nation’s 50 largest cities.” http://on.natgeo.com/1aYYAz3

CRUISELINES SCURRY TO COMPETE IN CHINA: As the popularity of cruise vacations grows in China, major players like Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Princess “are engaged in an arms race of pampering-at-sea,” Bloomberg Businessweek explains in its latest cover story, “The People’s Republic of Cruiseland.” Christopher Beam reports: “The cruise business in China is still small. In 2014 about 700,000 Chinese travelers cruised, compared with 10 million Americans and more than 6 million Europeans. But the numbers are climbing rapidly — an increase of 79 percent from 2012 to 2014 — and the ceiling isn’t yet visible. In the U.S. and Australia, about 3.5 percent of the population cruises each year; the proportion in China is less than one-sixtieth of that. Some forecasters estimate that China will be the No. 2 market by 2017 — and that it could eventually replace the U.S. as the largest in the world.” http://bloom.bg/1yYt5QT

THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ):

— Keys to the highway of the future: Smart cars, smarter networks. The Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1Kmg0lR

— At the tender age of 10, the Airbus A380 is already entering a mid-life crisis. Bloomberg Business: http://bloom.bg/1Kmgs3E

— Editorial Board: Fixes for ‘third-world’ airports. The New York Times: http://nyti.ms/1DB73Aw

— California’s state Senate committee has advanced a bill that would bar railroads from operating with fewer than two crew members. The Daily Democrat: http://bit.ly/1z48wTj

— Concerns on Jeep safety remain, despite recall. The New York Times: http://nyti.ms/1EaT7Qf

THE COUNTDOWN: Highway and transit policy expires in 34 days. DOT appropriations run out and the FAA reauthorization expires in 156 days. The 2016 presidential election is in 562 days.

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