We have a special treat to share with you.

Rep. James Oberstar, outgoing chair of the House transportation committee, has written a letter to the supporters and coalition members of Transportation for America that we’d like to share.

Rep. Oberstar has been a tireless advocate for transportation during his 18 terms in Congress, working to build a 21st century transportation system that works better, saves money, gives us more options, keeps us safer and gets us where we’re going.

After you read his letter, click here to leave a message for Chairman Oberstar that we’ll get to him right after the holidays. The next time we meet with him, we want him to hear from our thousands of supporters that his hard work has not gone unnoticed.

We’ll see you all in 2011. Happy Holidays.

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Message to the Transportation for America Coalition from Hon. James L. Oberstar, Chairman, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

Dear Friends:

As I prepare to end my 36-year career in Congress, I want to take this opportunity to thank the millions of concerned Americans who have supported my efforts to create a new, bipartisan vision for our Nation’s infrastructure.

The Transportation for America Coalition has played a key role in educating and activating Americans on the vital need to create an innovative, robust blueprint for the country’s transportation future.

Congestion is choking our roadways.  Our bridges are in dire need of repair, rehabilitation, or replacement.  Transit options are inadequate or nonexistent in most communities, and our passenger rail system pales in comparison to those in Europe and Asia.  Our economy is suffering for it.  Our standing in the world marketplace is slipping.  If we can’t move people to work and goods to market, we will never recover.

At the same time, we need to create and sustain good, family-wage jobs.  As the stimulus provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has proven, investment in our transportation infrastructure will do that.

We must approach our transportation holistically.  We can no longer afford to focus separately on highways, transit, and rail.  The Department of Transportation must develop a culture of intermodalism, one where DOT agencies share information, ideas, and initiatives.

If we are to reform our Nation’s transportation system, we must also address the issue of funding.  The fuel tax, the backbone of our surface transportation revenue stream, has not been raised since 1993.  A dollar today does not buy what it did in 1993, and this is especially true of construction costs, which have increased far beyond the rate of inflation.

Voters and legislatures in several states have elected to raise their state and local transportation taxes, and that is commendable.  However, if we are to avoid a state-by-state patchwork of highway conditions and transportation systems and have a truly national transportation network, we must approach this issue on a national scale.  This must be done by Congress.

While fuel taxes will remain the foundation of our transportation revenues for the foreseeable future, we must look beyond this source for sustainable funding.  As Americans choose to burn less fuel, drive more efficient cars, and live in communities with better transportation options, fuel purchases will level off and eventually decline.  New sources of revenue must be identified, developed, and phased in to supplement, and possibly eventually replace, the fuel tax as our primary source of transportation funding.

New leadership comes to the House Committee on Transportation in 2011, and the effort to craft a new, six-year surface transportation authorization bill will begin anew.  It will be up to you in the Transportation for America Coalition, and informed, motivated groups and individuals throughout the country, to make your voices heard again, to help steer Congress to making the right choices for America.

Good luck and God bless.

James L. Oberstar, M.C.

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Click here to leave a message of thanks for Rep. Oberstar that we’ll deliver to him in early 2011

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has made a point of championing bicycling as a legitimate travel option everywhere, but he is also keeping an eye on his own backyard, including Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. LaHood joined DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, city staff and members of Congress in inaugurating the new dedicated bike lanes on what is known to some as “America’s Main Street.”

According to the Washington Post, the new lanes are part of a pilot program on streets expected to be able to accommodate both significant automobile and bicycle traffic. They run along Pennsylvania between Third Street and 15th Street in DC’s Northwest quadrant.

One of the most important people to attend the event, held last Wednesday, June 23, was among the least known: DC Department of Transportation Director Gabe Klein. Although local bicycling advocates had differing opinions on how to construct the Pennsylvania Avenue lanes, no one can dispute that Klein has been a visionary in making DC more livable and accessible by all kinds of transit options. Klein and his staff at DDOT, many of whom attended themselves, deserve a lot of credit.

Here is LaHood on his blog, describing two bike boosters in Congress who attended the inauguration.

We should also thank two of our nation’s most effective bicycling advocates, Rep. Blumenauer and Rep. Jim Oberstar, Chairman of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, both of whom joined us in yesterday’s heat to celebrate these new lanes–in their work shirts and ties, along with helmets, gloves, and ankle straps to keep their pants out of their bike chains.

In his remarks, Rep. Blumenauer made a terrific point, reminding motorists that, “A bike is really a driver’s best friend. Because every bike you see cruising down one of these lanes is one less car to compete with in traffic, one less bit of congestion, one less driver buying fuel.”

But it was Rep. Oberstar who may have had the best line of the day: “Bicyclists aren’t burning hydrocarbons; we’re burning carbohydrates!”

The need for a blueprint to address these imbalances could not be clearer, says Natural Resources Defense Council Executive Director Peter Lehner, in a guest post for the Infrastructurist.

We need a new direction that moves America beyond oil and other dirty fuels. This is admittedly a huge challenge: The U.S. consumes the equivalent of the 19,000 or so barrels of sludge released daily by the BP geyser in less than two minutes. Yet this eye-popping consumption level also affords opportunities to address our energy needs by focusing on saving oil rather than scouring the ends of the earth for more.

Lehner praises the Obama administration for adopting higher fuel economy standards for cars and trucks, a step that will make our nation’s vehicle fleet cleaner and more efficient. Lehner also calls for a climate bill that makes alternatives sources of energy more affordable and available.

But all roads inevitably lead to transportation policy, and Congress can make a real dent in America’s oil consumption by embracing a forward-looking reauthorization of current surface transportation law. The draft proposal unveiled by Congressman Jim Oberstar’s House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee includes significant moves toward increased transit options and stronger benchmarks, but could go further.

This is where the Transportation for America campaign comes in, and Lehner points to our coalition’s Route to Reform blueprint as an important guidepost. Adopting the policies in T4 America’s Route to Reform could reduce oil consumption by more than a million barrels a day by 2030, and Lehner seeks the kind of urgency that would make that goal possible.

To sum up, we must use every tool at our disposal given the massive scale of the challenge. This means focusing on reforming our outdated, wasteful transportation law. I look forward to working with Congress and the President on this goal, for the sake of the Gulf, the planet, and future generations.

At a point in history when American trust in Congress is at or near all-time lows, it’s probably not a great time to interrupt regular programming to announce that a single Senator kept the Senate from passing an emergency one-month extension of the current transportation bill before adjourning today, leaving it to expire over the weekend and threatening the flow of money to transportation programs — federal and state.

The transportation bill, which has already been extended four times since its initial expiration in 2009, funds federal and state transportation programs. Which means that come Monday or Tuesday (it’s uncertain which at this point), federal transportation agencies from the Department of Transportation to the Federal Transit Administration will be furloughing employees and in a state of near shutdown.

Perhaps most importantly, and of much greater concern to most people than the fact that federal transportation officials in D.C. might be sent home for a few days, the government checks that go out every two weeks to state departments of transportation to reimburse them for their ongoing contracts for transportation projects will not be sent out on Monday as usual, regardless of what happens Monday, according to several of our sources.

As Elana Schor (@eschor) pointed on Twitter this afternoon, this means “$184 [million] per day in lost transpo reimbursements for road repairs, bridge building, and transit.”

Chairman Jim Oberstar held a press conference to talk about the issue this afternoon, calling Sen. Jim Bunning’s obstruction “astonishing” and comparing it to the government shutdown of 1995. He detailed the specifics of what will happen at federal and state transportation agencies as the flow of money that funds highway and bridge repair, transit agencies and programs will shut off Monday. Later this afternoon, he said in a press release on Facebook that “I find it outrageous that one senator can kill a piece of legislation and cause chaos for our cities and states. Thanks to this one person’s intransigence, Minnesota will not be reimbursed for its federal share of highway projects until we get this mess sorted out.”

He points out that some states may have to suspend work on projects — something that Missouri has already done by announcing that they won’t open up several new projects for bid next week with their funding stream so up in the air.

As usual, Elana Schor at Streetsblog DC has some of the most thorough coverage of the issue, though it is making headlines in Politico, CQ and other outlets.

We’ll have more intel and reaction on Monday, and hopefully news about a solution to the bill’s expiration.

Have you seen an announcement (like Missouri’s) in your state of halted projects, delayed contracts, or furloughed workers? Let us know in the comments.

UPDATED: The bill will likely be voted on today under suspension of the rules, and there will be at least some GOP opposition to it. Elana Schor at Streetsblog reports that “Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) said Cantor would join Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. John Mica (FL), senior Republican on Oberstar’s committee, in opposing the three-month extension.”

Rep. Jim Oberstar’s plan to introduce and/or pass a 3-month extension of the expiring surface transportation bill has hit a snag. According to the subscription-only email service Transportation Weekly, House Republican leadership has decided to oppose the bill, creating a roadblock for passing it today as planned under suspension of the rules, which requires a 2/3 vote and therefore some Republican support.

The 3-month extension (H.R. 3617) has been removed from the scheduled votes for today according to Transportation Weekly, noting that the reason for opposition isn’t exactly clear just yet:

Republicans have not yet made a public announcement as to what their objections to the three-month extension are, but one GOP staffer said that there should be a longer extension until the Democrats take the issue of a gasoline tax increase to pay for House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar’s (D-MN) $450 billion, six-year bill off the table.  Therefore, this could represent a real breaking point between Oberstar and his ranking Republican, John Mica (R-FL), who has so far been in lockstep with Oberstar (at least in public)…

To add to the confusion, The Journal Of Commerce reported yesterday that momentum might be building for a a shorter extension in the Senate, where all signs thus far have pointed toward passing the 18-month extension that the Obama administration prefers.

In the face of insistence by leaders in the House of Representatives to extend soon-to-expire federal highway programs by only three months, some senators are beginning to move away from plans for an 18-month extension…

…“There’s some movement, I think, toward a short-term extension” in the Senate, said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. Thune is not only part of the Senate Republican leadership team as chief deputy whip but also ranking minority member on the surface transportation panel of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

So to summarize, the Democrats in the House want to pass a 3-month extension. The Republicans in the House are now opposing that, potentially leaning towards an 18-month extension. The Democrats in the Senate want an 18-month extension. The Republicans in the Senate are now leaning towards a shorter extension, possibly 3 months.

There are still several other ways for Rep. Oberstar to get his bill passed in the House without that Republican support, and it’s  not certain at all that House Republicans would actually vote against it if push came to shove. Same goes for the Senate.

Stay tuned.

Appearing at an economic recovery news conference Wednesday in Minnesota, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar said he will hold a full committee mark-up of a $500 billion, six-year federal surface transportation authorization the week of Labor Day, when Congress returns from its summer recess. Oberstar, D-MN, told Minnesota Public Radio that he expects to have the bill on the floor by the third week of September.

Though the Chairman has been promised by leadership that his transportation bill will come to the floor by the third week of September according to the story, the same obstacles to quick passage still remain. The Ways and Means Committee is responsible for determining how to pay for a bill that’s nearly twice as expensive as the last 6-year bill, and to date, they’ve indicated little willingness to think long and hard about transportation revenue while engaged in the health care and climate debates.

As Ken Orski points out, “only 15 of the 41 committee members have gone on record in a letter to committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) supporting prompt action (i.e. in September) on a revenue package for the bill.” Regardless, we’ll be watching the markup closely come September.

h/t to Twitter user and T4 partner @cwsjd99

With the House passing a $7 billion patch for the Highway Trust Fund yesterday afternoon to keep it from running out of money before September, we thought it might be useful to post a brief Q&A about the trust fund patch and how the full six-year transportation authorization bill could be affected. The $7 billion patch now moves to the Senate for a vote, probably this afternoon, before reaching President Obama’s desk. The Highway Trust Fund (HTF) provides funds for the federal portion of transportation projects.

If the patch is approved by the Senate, Congress will then be is now facing a much bigger decision before the current transportation bill expires on September 30th: pass a new six-year transportation bill, or pass a short- or long-term extension of SAFETEA-LU, the existing transportation bill.

What is the short-term patch and who supports it?

The short-term patch would repair the trust fund insolvency through a $7 billion cash infusion into the HTF. The funds would be transferred from the General Fund before Congress goes on recess in August and would ensure that states can continue to obligate transportation funds through September 30th, 2009. The patch would address the funding shortfall due to declining gas tax revenues that are no longer sufficient to cover the federal portion of transportation projects.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar supported this option and testified before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on July 23rd asking for the $3 billion patch. (That patch has since been increased to $7 billion to match the Senate’s preferred amount.)

How does this relate to the upcoming expiration of SAFETEA-LU on September 30th?

With this cash infusion Congress could continue to focus on pushing the authorization of a new 6-year surface transportation bill this September. The original $3 billion figure was based on recent estimates made by DOT but both the White House and DOT officials have expressed concern that $5-7 billion is a more accurate figure needed to keep the HTF solvent through September. (The House passed a $7 billion patch.)

What is the extension and who supports it?

An extension would continue SAFETEA-LU policies and funding guarantees for a specified amount of time to allow Congress and the Administration to continue working on a full 6-year comprehensive bill.  A proposed 18-month extension would extend SAFETEA-LU to March 2011. Numerous Senators have stated their preference for an 18-month extension, which is also currently supported by the White House. On July 23rd the Senate Banking Committee became the third Senate committee to approve an 18-month extension bill. Congress is also considering the possibility of a short-term extension of 3, 6, or 12 months in lieu of a longer-term extension.

How would the extension be funded and how does it address the near-term shortfall in HTF funds?

An extension of SAFETEA-LU for any length of time would be paid through gas taxes and a possible General Fund infusion. (More funding from some source would certainly be required, as gas taxes do not cover the current funding levels.)

The Senate Financing Committee Chairman Max Baucus released a funding proposal (S. 1474) on July 21st that would maintain the HTF’s solvency throughout an 18-month extension.  This provision will transfer $26.8 billion from the General Fund to transportation ($22 billion to HTF, $4.8 billion to the mass transit account).  The fund transfer will begin in time to provide near-term funding (through August) before HTF reaches insolvency.

Any questions? Ask away in the comments and we’ll try to answer.

On Monday, June 29th the Minnesota Coalition of Transportation for America welcomed community, city, and state leaders to learn more about the T4 America vision for the next federal transportation bill — and how Minnesotans would benefit from a reformed federal transportation program.

The event, hosted by the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis, was attended by city officials, state legislators, congressional offices, business leaders, labor groups and advocacy organizations from across the state. The packed room heard from Anne Canby and Mariia Zimmerman, the Washington, D.C. representatives of the T4 America campaign, as they walked through the campaign’s Route to Reform, a detailed blueprint for the transportation bill.

The meeting came on the heels of Chairman Oberstar releasing a draft 775-page transportation bill he hopes to pass before the current federal bill expires in September.  In describing how Oberstar’s bill fits in with the T4 America vision, Anne Canby said that the draft is “on the right track,” and that “Oberstar is full of fire and ready to go. He has filled a vacuum with his leadership.”

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin and State Representative Frank Hornstein highlighted how Minnesota communities would benefit from sweeping reforms in the transportation bill. In describing the need for new federal transportation policy as proposed by the T4 America campaign, Mayor Rybak indicated that “we shouldn’t strive for less” but that Minneapolis and the State have to be ready for it.  Michael Lander, a developer with many projects around the Twin Cities, also spoke about the need to include land use discussions when planning any transportation project because “transportation has always driven development.” He noted that the T4 America vision is “planning to meet the coming demand” for housing in convenient, walkable locations with access to public transportation.

In attendance were representatives from Chairman Oberstar’s office, Congressman Ellison and Congresswoman Betty McCollum’s offices.  State legislators, including Rep. Hausman and Rep. Kahn, county commissioners and city staffers from St. Paul and Minneapolis were among the crowd eager to hear about the work being done to create federal transportation policy that would benefit their communities.

It was not a strictly metropolitan affair as the Mayor of Independence and a representative from State Sen. Clark’s office from St. Cloud came to hear about how smaller and more rural communities could also get their transportation needs addressed in the federal bill.

One concern all of the elected officials shared was making sure Minnesota’s roads, highways and bridges were in a state of good repair.  Rep. Hornstein noted that we cannot invest in a “fax machine on the dawn of the internet revolution” indicating that we need to reach what he calls “infrastructure 2.0.”

“Infrastructure 2.0 is what is in this Transportation for America plan.”

• Protecting our climate and gaining more energy independence begins, and doesn’t end, with the climate bill making its way through Congress. (Reuters)

• The speed of spending federal stimulus dollars remains a contentious issue. (USA Today)

• Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar looks to make his mark with the next transportation bill. (Congressional Quarterly)

h/t Twitter @JimOberstar