The TranspoBlog

Heavy Hitters Standing Together to Fund Freight

By Matthew Lewis | September 25, 2009, 9:00 am | | Print This

The Transportation Lobby investigation shows that hundreds of local interest groups nationwide are bringing their concerns to Washington in the run-up to a new federal transportation bill. But increasingly, broad national coalitions are also stepping up their lobbying efforts in concert, asking for new transportation programs with some sort of national vision behind them.

And these coalitions have plenty of resources.

Last week, one such alliance — the Freight Stakeholders Coalition — convened a meeting at the National Press Club to push for a structured federal program dedicated to moving the nation’s goods. “We must focus on the system as a whole,” said former deputy Transportation Secretary Mortimer Downey, “rather than viewing the nation’s transportation infrastructure as separate systems that occasionally interact.”

Downey jokingly called the Freight Stakeholders a “matroyshka doll of coalitions.” The American Trucking Associations, Association of American Railroads, and American Association of Port Authorities are joined by broader business groups such as the National Retail Federation, National Association of Manufacturers, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Downey’s own organization, the Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors, is also part of the Freight Stakeholders and represents interests ranging from the Oregon Department of Transportation to the National Corn Growers Association. In all, the massive Freight Stakeholders Coalition’s 17 national members, which on their own also represent scores of individual interest groups, have together spent more than $28.5 million lobbying Congress in the first half of 2009; that includes lobbying on a variety of issues, transportation among them. At least 69 lobbyists represent a Freight Stakeholders member on federal transportation policy.

“I think we’ve turned up the fire,” said Jean Godwin, executive vice president of the American Association of Port Authorities, which manages the coalition.

The coalition is calling on Congress to mandate a strategic plan for the efficient movement of freight. State highway officials have suggested $60 billion over the proposed transportation bill’s six years go toward funding high-traffic freight corridors. That’s important, because the Transportation Department estimates the volume of goods moved in America will climb 70 percent above 2002 levels by the end of the next decade. Similar intiatives have been called for by independent commissions and think tanks across the political spectrum. And this isn’t the first time.

The freight coalition has been pushing this vision since 1991, when an earlier version of federal transportation law was significantly reformed by Congress. The over-arching law governing transportation policy has been updated twice since then, but changes to freight policy, the coalition says, have been incremental at best. Groups that could stand to be individual winners based on the specific direction of federal spending — such as truckers or national railroads — are joining hands at the moment. But the criticism of policy has often been that it ends up picking winners from within that group on a project by project basis. The policy “tries to be all things to all interests,” said American Trucking Associations director of highway operations Darrin Roth. “It’s time to refocus the program.”

The $286 billion transportation bill passed by Congress in 2005 did authorize programs to fund important freight projects around the country. But the Government Accountabilty Office criticized those programs, which ended up being loaded with Congressional earmarks. Some worthwhile projects did emerge, like the Heartland Corridor linking Norfolk, Virginia by rail all the way to Chicago. But the Transportation Department reported to Congress last May that money was never even obligated for 12 of the 25 projects earmarked in one program. Half of those hand-picked winners never even submitted project descriptions to the federal government.

“This is incongruous for projects that are intended to be of the highest national priority,” the Department wrote.

Godwin of the port authorities association said the coalition would prefer to see a structure that allows money to be spent with clear goals in mind. Coalition groups are encouraged by House Transportation Chairman James Oberstar’s $500 billion transportation draft, which pledges to consolidate programs and fund freight projects “through an open, competitive, and merit-based selection process.” But that bill has taken a back seat to a game of political chicken in Washington over how and when current law might be extended. For lawmakers, that’s a more attractive political prospect at the moment than trying to push through new legislation. But transportation lobbyists are frustrated. “It doesn’t make sense to say we need more time,” said Janet Kavinoky of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a member of the coalition.

In June the Chamber had more than 100 individual business leaders carry its concerns to Washington lawmakers in a day of lobbying. The group is even supporting a hike in the gas tax to pay for the bill. But raising that tax has been a third rail for national lawmakers since 1993, when it was last adjusted shortly before the Republican takeover of Congress. Lawmakers haven’t forgotten that timing, despite the transportation lobby’s growing impatience.

“Is there ever a good time?” Kavinoky asked. “No, if there was, we wouldn’t have waited 16 years.”