- San Francisco Chronicle: New cracks found on Bay Bridge threaten safety
- Contra Costa Times: Bay Bridge tower bolts could be replaced, engineer says
- San Jose Mercury News; San Jose City Council gives green light to Uber and ride-hailing services
- San Jose Mercury News: Roadshow: Golden Gate Bridge tolls to increase July 1
- San Francisco Examiner: Muni Challenge ends, Mayor Lee rides only twice in one month
- Sacramento Bee: Walters: Reforming CEQA still vital work
POLITICO Morning Transportation for 6/24/2015
By JENNIFER SCHOLTES, with help from Heather Caygle and Brian Faler
EPW LEADERS AIM TO SET TRANSPORTATION FUNDING DONE TODAY: Senate Environment and Public Works Committee leaders mark up their six-year transportation bill this morning, hoping to lay out a framework Congress’ tax experts can keep in mind while trying to find some long-term pay-fors. But without money, the proposal is just a hollow policy skeleton, especially since “lawmakers continue to squabble over how to bail out the Highway Trust Fund beyond July 31 and seem light-years away from agreement on finding the billions needed to fund a six-year bill,” our Heather Caygle writes. A lot more on that: http://politico.pro/1QOYOfE.
The meat: Heather explains that, “mainly, the bill boosts overall funding by an average of 3 percent annually and includes about $2 billion in annual funding for a new federal freight program.” During today’s markup, the committee is expected to vote down Democratic amendments that would hike funding levels and make the new freight program more multimodal instead of highway-focused.
Watch live at 9:30 a.m.: http://1.usa.gov/1FzQTXU. Bill text: http://politico.pro/1Hd1xv7.
WAYS AND MEANS CONTINUES SEARCH FOR GOLDEN GOOSE: House Ways and Means lawmakers meet again this afternoon to talk about options for filling the Highway Trust Fund over the long haul, focusing now on repatriation. This time, the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures will host the transportation funding hearing, calling on testimony from Joint Committee on Taxation chief Tom Barthold, long-time CRS tax expert Jane Gravelle and a tax lawyer who served in the Bush administration’s Treasury Department. Watch live at 2 p.m.: http://bit.ly/1dKRb03.
Just in time for the hearing, the JCT released a report (http://1.usa.gov/1QNG5RL) on repatriation that goes over issues lawmakers will want to consider in writing proposals to use taxes on companies’ overseas earnings to fund transportation infrastructure projects.
T&I PRESSES FEINBERG FOR PTC PLAN: House lawmakers will be looking for definitive answers today from FRA acting administrator Sarah Feinberg about what her agency plans to do when the positive train control deadline rolls around at year’s end and a whole swath of the rail industry is still not compliant. This morning’s House T&I subcommittee hearing comes just three weeks after Feinberg told the committee that her agency has a range of enforcement options but is still having “internal conversations” about how to proceed. The head of the FCC’s wireless telecomm bureau will also testify, along with leaders in the commuter and freight rail industries. Tune in at 10 a.m.: http://1.usa.gov/1BbglaH.
IT’S WEDNESDAY: Good morning and thanks for reading POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on trains, planes, automobiles and ports.
Reach out: jscholtes@politico.com or @jascholtes.
“I’m driving, here I sit, cursing my government, for not using my taxes to fill holes with more cement.” http://bit.ly/1eGhY6O (H/t Erik Strickland)
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McCONNELL FORECASTS EX-IM RIDER ON HIGHWAY BILL: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is giving new hope to those scheming to hitch renewal of the Export-Import Bank to the highway bill lawmakers will need to pass by the end of July to prevent a policy and funding lapse. “The highway bill will be open for amendment, and it’s pretty obvious that that would be a place for this vote to occur,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday, just a few days before the bank’s charter expires on June 30. Pro’s Doug Palmer brings it: http://politico.pro/1FA71IN.
DRONE SECURITY BILL SAILS TO SENATE: Off to the Senate goes a bill that would require the Department of Homeland Security to work with DOT and other departments to research how commercially available drones could be used to carry out terrorist attacks and to craft policies reduce that risk. The House passed the measure, sponsored by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, by voice vote Tuesday afternoon. “The legislation passed today shows dynamic, bipartisan effort to help improve the security of the nation,” the House Homeland Security Committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Bennie Thompson, said in a written statement. “In the wrong hands, an off-the-shelf small or medium-sized drone can jam communications, take surveillance imagery, and could even be weaponized.” Bill text: http://1.usa.gov/1BLAC7p.
SENATORS SAY NHTSA NEEDS MAKEOVER, NOT MONEY: In a Congress that seemed so eager to reconsider funding levels for the nation’s recall agency this spring, a contrary sentiment is growing among lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. During Tuesday’s Senate Commerce hearing on the recall process for defective Takata airbags, several senators made clear that they believe NHTSA is too broken to be helped by a funding boost right now. “NHTSA isn’t following basic best practices,” Chairman John Thune told NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind. “And these are process issues that can’t be solved just by throwing additional resources at the problem.” Sen. Claire McCaskill delivered a similarly harsh message for the administrator: “This isn’t about resources. This is about blatant, incompetent mismanagement,” she told Rosekind. “I’m not about to give you more money until I see meaningful progress.” More from Pro: http://politico.pro/1J3t2Ve.
SENATE THUD BILL SKATES THROUGH COMMITTEE: Setting initial funding levels in subcommittee on Tuesday, Senate appropriators plan to quickly move forward this week on reporting out their fiscal 2016 THUD bill. The full committee will take up the $55.7 billion draft bill Thursday morning, putting its mark on the proposal that would provide DOT $17.8 billion in discretionary funding, which amounts to $17 million less than enacted last year and almost $3 billion less than President Barack Obama requested, according to the committee: http://1.usa.gov/1GFFud6. Our Kathryn A. Wolfe reports that “the bill also includes language mandating rules on electronic logging devices and speed limiters for certain commercial vehicles.” Funding breakdown from Pro: http://politico.pro/1RuQ9tO.
TAKATA COMMITS TO CONSIDER COMPENSATION FUND: Senators expect to know in two weeks whether Takata is going to create a fund to compensate families of those killed in accidents involving the manufacturer’s faulty airbags. Under pressure from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, one of the airbag maker’s top executives committed to getting back to Congress with a decision within that timeframe. “I will certainly take that back to our chairman and to our team and discuss that and get back to you on that,” Kevin Kennedy, Takata’s North America executive vice president, said during a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee. “But I’m not in a position today to commit to that.” More from Pro: http://politico.pro/1QOXrOb.
NEW TRUCK RULE DOES LITTLE FOR NATURAL GAS INDUSTRY: Despite early praise from natural gas leaders, there seems to be little for the industry to gain from DOT’s new proposal for regulating truck fuel usage. Pro Energy’s Eric Wolff explains that “when it comes to electric power, the EPA sings the praises of natural gas as a clean air hero, especially in contrast with coal-based generation, which provided the backbone of the power sector for so long. But when it comes to big rigs and buses, the government’s life-cycle analysis revealed that natural gas vehicles’ greenhouse gas profile was little better than the most modern diesel equipment. … Proponents of natural gas may have expected that the rule would follow the lead of its predecessor, the 2011 phase 1 heavy duty engines rule, which created ‘a small balanced incentive for natural gas use,’ as the EPA and DOT wrote in the phase 2 proposal. But the agencies don’t expect the new rule to strengthen demand for natural gas vehicles.” http://politico.pro/1FAdovH
MOVING ON UP: Dennis Muilenburg is taking the chief executive post at Boeing starting July 1. Pro’s Leigh Munsil reports that “Muilenburg has been Boeing’s president and chief operating officer since 2013. Previously, he was head of the Defense, Space and Security business. Jim McNerney, 65, who’s served as CEO for the past 10 years, will continue on as chairman of the board, the company said in a news release. He plans to retire at the end of February 2016.” http://politico.pro/1LAgEMP
MT MAILBAG:
— The AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department wrote to Senate Commerce leaders this week, asking them to remove data collection language from the Port Performance Act. The department’s president, Edward Wytkind, said in his letter (http://politico.pro/1LAfktj) that the provisions would hurt port workers in collective bargaining disputes through the arbitrary application of new metrics. Pro’s Marianne LeVine explains that the legislation, introduced last month, “would require the director of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics to establish a port performance statistics program, subject port authorities to federal regulation, and require the Transportation secretary to provide Congress with a report of a port’s performance before and after the end of labor agreements to assess whether negotiations affected operations.” http://politico.pro/1LsRnY4
— In a letter to Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune this week about the port bill, a group of manufacturers, retailers, importers and exporters voiced support for the data collection provision. Marianne reports (http://politico.pro/1CrBjxs) that “the organizations said the bill would help ensure visibility of port operations, since, as of now, there is ‘a lack of good, empirical data on port congestion.’” That letter: http://politico.pro/1He702V.
THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ):
— Asian car makers out-earn U.S. rivals. The Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1N6zN9C
— Dust off that Oldsmobile, diesel’s almost as cheap as petrol. Bloomberg Business: http://bloom.bg/1Nhg1sD
— 13 free story ideas about McDonald’s new McBikes. The Verge: http://bit.ly/1BL5HIz
— Metro train operator’s testimony details fear in smokey tunnel. AP: http://nyti.ms/1LArum7
— Ford moves closer to self-driving vehicles. The Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1LArm63
— Police search Toyota headquarters in Japan. Bloomberg Business: http://bloom.bg/1dfdQJg
— Driver shortage ripples across trucking industry. The Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1HaVUvn
THE COUNTDOWN: Highway and transit policy expires in 38 days. DOT appropriations run out and the FAA reauthorization expires in 99 days. The 2016 presidential election is in 505 days.
Tags: transportation