Marine Transportation System

Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

, , , , , , , ,

That’s What Friends Are For

In Congress, Federal Government, Leadership, Politics on August 31, 2017 at 12:06 am

If there’s going to be an historic flood in the United States that requires the full measure of Federal response and recovery assistance, it might as well be in Texas and neighboring Louisiana.

That’s not to wish such devastation on the property and people, many of whom will struggle to achieve normalcy over a too-long recovery. It is recognition that the oil and gas-rich Gulf region has more than fossil fuels going for it. It has government power in Washington and more BTUs of it than have most other parts of the country.

Let’s start with those House Members whose districts are in the generally affected region, some more affected than others. These are politicians who naturally will be attentive to the needs of troubled constituents. Many of them sit on useful committees. Many are ranking on subcommittees. Of course, the more senior the person, the more influence he or she also is likely to have. Then there are the senators, who by their office usually wield more power than their House counterparts. Showing them in numerical order of districts, their terms served, and significant committee assignments —

  • Ted Poe (R-2nd TX) is in his 7th term, on Judiciary, subcommittee chair on Foreign Affairs, and co-chair of the House PORTS Caucus.
  • John Culberson (R-7th TX) is in his 9th term, and a subcommittee chairman on Appropriations.
  • Kevin Brady (R- 8th TX) is in his 11th term, chairs the House Ways & Means Committee and is leading the drafting of new US tax policy, which President Trump claims as one of his very highest priorities.
  • Al Green (D-9th TX) is in his 7th term, and a ranking minority member on Financial Services.
  • Randy Weber (R-14th TX) is in his 4th term, on Transportation & Infrastructure, and a subcommittee chairman on Science.
  • Sheila Jackson Lee (D-18th TX) is in her 12th term, on Budget, and is a ranking minority member on Homeland Security.
  • Pete Olson (R-22nd TX) is in his 5th term, on Energy & Commerce, andco-chairs the Congressional Refinery Caucus.
  • Blake Farenthold (R-27th TX) is in his 4th term, a subcommittee chairman on Oversight & Government Reform, and on Transportation & Infrastructure.
  • Gene Green (D-29th TX) is in his 13th term, a ranking minority member on Energy & Commerce, and co-chairs the Congressional Natural Gas Caucus.
  • Brian Babin (R-36th TX) is in his 2nd term, on Transportation & Infrastructure, and chairs the Space Subcommittee that is important to the Houston Space Center.
  • Clay Higgins (R-3rd LA) is in his 1st term, on Homeland Security,
  • Mike Johnson (R-4th LA) is in his 1st term, on Natural Resources.

…………

  • Ted Cruz (R-TX) is in his 2nd term, and is on Senate Armed Services and chairs the Space Subcommittee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, which also has jurisdiction over the Coast Guard and other maritime matters.
  • John Kennedy (R-LA) is in his 1st term, on the Senate Appropriations, Budget and Small Business Committees, and served five terms as Treasurer of his State.
  • Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is a medical doctor in his 1st term and on the Senate Energy & Natural Resources and Finance Committees.
  • John Cornyn (R-TX) is in his 3rd term, is on the tax-writing Finance Committee, and is Majority Whip, the second highest Republican leader in the Senate.

Beyond John Cornyn’s considerable leadership post, certain of the above committees will or can prove useful in the weeks, months and years of the recovery, some more obvious than others. Appropriations, Agriculture, Armed Services, Transportation & Infrastructure, and Small Business stand out but even being on Energy and Homeland Security panels can be useful in times like these. Likewise, the tax-writing committees where revisions to the tax code are being drafted.

Needless to say, it also helps to be a Republican, from a Republican state, when the White House and levers of government also are in Republican hands.

As icing on the above layered cake, I will add to the list Members from other regions of Texas and Louisiana. In no particular order —

  • Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) chairs the Financial Services Committee that oversees the banking and investment communities and in September will be taking to the House floor legislation to reauthorize and amend the National Flood Insurance Program.  The timing couldn’t be better.
  • Pete Sessions (R-TX) chairs the powerful House Rules Committee that decides, with top Republican leadership, what bills and amendments are allowed to be considered by the full House.
  • Michael McCaul (R-TX) chairs the Homeland Security Committee that has jurisdiction over Federal emergency response programs and Customs & Border Protection, whose personnel have been on the front line of the response to Harvey and are important in port commerce recovery.
  • Steve Scalise (R-LA), who as House Majority Whip is the third ranking Republican in the House leadership. (He has been recovering from gunshot wounds suffered this spring in an attack on Republican Members.)
  • Garret Graves (R-LA) chairs the House Water Resource & Environment Subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the Corps of Engineers, whose engineering resources and funding are vital in clearing navigation channels, evaluating the structure of dams and levees, and studying improvements needed to better prepare the region for flood events.
  • Kay Granger (R-TX) chairs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Pentagon resources have been on display in rescue efforts.
  • John Carter (R-TX) chairs the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, which funds the Coast Guard, FEMA and other DHS agencies in its jurisdiction.

It is an impressive list that doesn’t include some other members of the Texas delegation who have subcommittee chairmanships not useful to mention here. Nor, as is apparent, are there Democrats listed with top party leadership posts. There are none in those states. Nor, as a consequence of their minority status, do they have committee chairmanships.

I will add two other names to the considerable resources available to the people of Texas and Louisiana as they look for billions of dollars in assistance to address infrastructure, housing and other needs. The two are are Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Thad Cochran (R-MS), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. As Lyle Lovett might tell them, “You’re not from Texas, but Texas wants you anyway.” Both men are from coastal and port states that know natural disasters and have relied on emergency Federal assistance and resources for rebuilding. They know the Defense Department, its Corps of Engineers, and other agencies intimately. They are not in ideological when it comes to appropriating funds at a time like this. They are not likely to equivocate when colleagues need immediate aid. Frelinghuysen’s statement was issued while it was still raining in Houston and Beaumont:

My Committee stands at the ready to provide any necessary additional funding for relief and recovery. We are awaiting requests from federal agencies who are on the ground, and will not hesitate to take quick action once an official request is sent.

The people of Texas and Louisiana have the support and prayers of presumably all Americans…but they also have the help of friends in high places. That will come in handy.   Pbea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advertisement

, , , , , ,

DPW Redux?

In Congress, Politics, Ports, Transportation Policy on May 12, 2016 at 10:50 pm

The trade press is reporting that a majority of shares of Ports America may be acquired by a corporation in Turkey, Yilport Holding Inc. The Istanbul-based corporation is part of a multi-industry holding company, its owner also a major investor in the French CMA CGM container shipping line, acknowledged the talks are occurring. Taking control of a major US terminal organization with around 40 operations around the country, would be a big move as compared to the UAE-based Gulftainer’s purchase of a small container terminal at Port Canaveral a few years back.

A better, if not perfect, analogy of a Mideast-based business making a move on a US MTO/stevedore would be the ill-fated move by DP World in 2006 to take over P&O Ports. At a time when American port security in a post-2001 world was still a very active subject in Washington the credible Dubai Ports World ran afoul of Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and others of both parties in Congress, including then-Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY). Claims were made that it was a potential foot-in-the-door by a state-owned organization from a region that sponsored terrorism. The rhetoric was hot. The subject was raw meat for never-too-tired-to-talk radio.

P&O Ports had approved the acquisition and the transaction involving port leases required Federal government review and clearance by Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Despite those approvals, and the strong support of the George W. Bush White House, the issue became such a political firestorm — involving an industry little understood in Congress, it should be noted — that in the end DP World withdrew, selling P&O Ports’ American operations to AIG. (As it happens, those terminals eventually came under the Ports America name.)

A second, unfortunate casualty of the blowup was the Bush administration’s candidate to be Maritime Administrator. The respected David Sanborn had the doubly bad luck of 1) having his nomination considered in the Senate in this same time frame and 2) being an operations executive of — yes, that’s right — DP World.

So is this another potential “DP World” should Yilport and Ports America do a deal? Maybe not. Turkey is a member of NATO and a US ally, if not the best kind of ally, and more time has passed since that anxiety-filled first decade. But the situation does invite a recollection of a particularly crazy time here when the marine terminal industry and the international nature of the maritime sector were under the glaring, if not illuminating, lights of official US.

What is not especially evident is whether all that attention then led to a greater understanding of the industry today.

, , , , , , , , , ,

Stormy Washington

In Congress, Federal Government, Politics, Washington, DC on January 21, 2016 at 12:35 am

Folks here are talking about actual weather, not metaphorical meteorology of the sort that can be a useful device when writing about Official Washington rhetoric and policy e.g., windy, hot air, foggy, drought…not to mention the occasional political lightning.

No, this is the lots-of-wet-snow kind.  Ninety percent chance of a few inches. Fifty percent chance of 12 inches. Maybe even a couple feet. “Colossal storm to unload a foot of snow from DC to Philadelphia, NYC” is the Washington Post weather page headline, that hours later could be modified in either direction depending on which predictive model is finding favor. I may wake up tomorrow to find the weekend storm will be Very Colossal or just Sorta Big. The fearful watch for snow passes for excitement in this Mid-Atlantic town. (What do you mean you’re out of snowblowers? You’re Home Depot, for godsakes!)

The snow starts here during the morning commute on Friday. The Nation’s Capital doesn’t manage heavy snow very well. We’re taking odds on the government sending people home even before they get to work. Get ready to hear spinning tire much of the day and night hours, and see sidewalks whose residents wouldn’t think of getting ankle deep in the wet stuff to shovel when the sun will eventually do it for you. (Wanna bet when the District’s downtown streets finally get plowed?)  Ah! Winter in Washington!

Then there is the financial storm front, forecast as likely to be of historic dimensions, that has been battering that other center of American power — Wall Street. Instead of snowfalls the headline is “Dow Falls.” The price of oil is sending economic shock waves through new and old producing states and here as well. Speculation has begun that the Federal Reserve will eventually be drawn back into a resumption of quantitative easing policy or some other response that confirms an economy in reverse gear. (You see! Obama is making things worse for American producers by lifting sanctions on Iranian oil.) The multiple committee oversight hearings are inevitable…for starters.

Let’s not leave out that other major disturbance now forming in the early primary states. Talking heads and party leaders are acknowledging the growing odds that political disruptors can win the party nominations. If it’s not Trump it’s Cruz. And what does that mean for the other Republicans on the ticket? Will Democrats regain the majority? Panic is setting in. (Jeb!)

Claire McCaskill (D-MO) resorted to using a “hammer and sickle” reference when talking about Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) as he grows stronger against her candidate, Hillary Clinton…who sent her daughter out to make specious claims against Sanders and worked the other end of the spectrum by suggesting that the Brooklyn-born Sanders is reliably doing NRA’s bidding. (Did she actually say that!) The patently silly talking point — to which Sanders responded by proudly pointing to his D- grade on the NRA report card — put quizzical faces on half the bronzes in Statuary Hall.

Then there is Donald Trump who yesterday said that there could be a place in his administration for Sarah Palin.

Washington is on its way to becoming a psychological mess.  Pbea

, ,

Politicians and the Pope

In Congress, Federal Government, Leadership, Politics on September 22, 2015 at 9:08 am

Occasionally I stray from strictly MTS matters. An historic appearance by the Bishop of Rome before a joint session of Congress–Mons Vaticanus to Capitol Hill–is as good an excuse as any to stray.

Today Pope Francis arrives in Washington. The advance logistics resemble those for presidential inaugurations. Security and transportation implications (“get ready for some epic traffic jams!”), with visitors in the hundreds of thousands predicted, are such that I and many others will be somewhere other than in the District of Columbia for the remainder of the week. Roll Call reports (“Members Will Be Blocked 2 Ways From Touching Pope Francis”) that “[O]ver-the-top precautions are a reflection of the unique protocol, security and political concerns attendant to the first papal address to a joint meeting of Congress. It has come to resemble a state visit, State of the Union address and presidential inaugural rolled into one.” The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has reassured us that the “Federal Government in the Washington, DC, area will remain ‘OPEN’ during these 3 days” but “to help alleviate traffic congestion and minimize distraction to law enforcement and security officials, agencies are urged to permit employees to use their workplace flexibility options,” such as teleworking.

The pope’s deep footprints will be left all around town — on the Hill, at the White House, in the NW sector where he will reside, and in places of worship for the faithful and of shelter for the homeless. Whether you are an observant Roman Catholic or not, Pope Francis’s visit here will be something to see, if only on the screen at home. How will this significant and inspiring religious figure affect the significant and sometimes uninspiring (and secular, politically speaking) elite of this town? The political press have an opinion, of course.

“Republicans want to use Pope Francis’s visit to Congress this week…to highlight their opposition to abortion rights. Democrats…hope the pope will lend new momentum to their efforts to address climate change, reform immigration law and win public approval for a nuclear deal with Iran. Papal experts say Francis’s address to a joint session of Congress Thursday [likely will be] more of a headache for Republicans.”

Yes, the GOP leadership’s focus on Planned Parenthood funding neatly coincides with his visit but the pope, whose schedule includes spending time with the have-not population in this town, also will be associated by the Dems with their present push to ease the 2011 budget caps on non-defense spending including programs to help the disadvantaged.

Pope Francis, who said in 2013 that “a good Catholic meddles in politics,” also issued an encyclical about man’s contribution to global warming, endorsed the Iran nuclear deal, and announced that Cuba would be his last stop before the US — all since Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), a Catholic, made the invitation to address Congress.

Ultimately, Washington is the nation’s political capital and so among the many thousands of the faithful who are expected to be here this week will be The Politician. We will see both parties’ selective scoring of the pope’s visit and we will watch Capitol Hill — and the president — make whatever they want out of the historic visit. Some assessments are already being heard and, judging by the reports, Republicans are especially quotable.

“I think we know the pope’s views on [abortion] and he’s right in that instance,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX).

“I just think the pope was wrong,” said NJ Governor Chris Christie with reference to the pope’s views on US and Cuba relations. “The fact is that his infallibility is on religious matters, not on political ones.”

“When the pope chooses to act and talk like a leftist politician [with respect to climate change], then he can expect to be treated like one,” wrote Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who said he will boycott the address.

“The pope has become a political football,” as The Hill reports, but, as we have seen in the last few years, and may see this week, Francis is quite the political athlete himself.   [Above unlinked quotes from The Hill]   Pbea

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What Will This Congress Do?

In Congress, Infrastructure, Marine Highway, Politics, Ports, Security, Surface Transportation Policy, Water Resources on January 9, 2015 at 1:45 pm

Nearly a dime’s worth of days into the New Year, this is no time to rehash what happened in the last Congress. A new Congress—the 114th of our maturing nation—is now underway. And what a new Congress it is.

Republicans now rule Capitol Hill and veteran Senate Democrats are being reminded of how it feels to be called Minority. (Republicans have held the majority in the House and Senate more often than not in the previous 10 congresses, since 1995.) At the other end of the avenue is a president who has confronted more than his share of domestic and international crises. January is the starting gun for his latest test – working with the 114th Congress and its routinely unfriendly and uncooperative Republican membership. In that respect, so far, there is not much new about this Congress.

The leaders in the House and Senate themselves face internal and external challenges as they assume on behalf of their caucuses the collective role of governing. Politico used apt “cliff” and “landmine” metaphors for what faces Speaker Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as they advance legislation through their own caucuses. The leaders know that the GOP is well positioned to turn around the “do-nothing Congress” label that the Republicans made possible—even intended—over recent years. (Yes, the dethroned Harry Reid hardly facilitated the legislative process in the Senate but Messrs Boehner and McConnell are faced with colleagues in the rank and file who came to Washington to stand in the way of government. Twelve Republicans found reason to vote against returning Boehner to the Speaker’s chair, as if he is didn’t well serve the cause(s) of conservative Republicans.) This go-round Democrats, with little control over committees, the bills they produce, and the floor schedule, will not be plausible scape goats for a failure to legislate. And in the Senate McConnell may be 6 votes shy of a filibuster proof majority but he has a pool of moderate Dems and an Indie who are potential “ayes,” such as we will see with the upcoming Keystone XL vote.

The success of a legislature is measured by legislative productivity. Can this Congress be productive with the Obama White House, which has vetoed exactly two bills in the past six years?

As previously noted, President Obama also will be tested. How well he will deal with the new Congress, his constitutional partner in making law? No doubt we will see more vetoes in his last two years in office but his legacy will depend more on what is accomplished than what he blocked.

In other words, they need each other. Few points will be awarded if progress is not seen in Washington. So, the question is whether the president can find within him the resolve of Bill Clinton, who famously made lemonade out of the GOP blowout of 1994, and whether the Republicans will function as if they want to be remembered as the “did-something Congress.”

All of that is background to a rundown of just some of the issues and questions that are of interest to the port/maritime industry and the larger freight sector.

The president put his previously stated policy view into surprise policy action with his late December announcement on normalizing diplomatic relations with Castro’s Cuba. Any number of ports, exporters and others were pleased by the news. There is bipartisan support among some in the House and Senate but Congress will either come down hard on the White House initiative or, rhetoric aside and with an eye on what Castro might do in the months ahead, show a willingness to reconsider the long-standing trade embargo that can only be ended by a change in law.

Last year, Congress came close to hitting the “target” of spending $1.2 billion from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. The enacted water resources law (WRRDA 2014) sets ambitious, incrementally higher targets for Congress to meet with funding for channel maintenance and other work authorized to be supported by trust fund monies. Will the Republicans, as the saying goes, “put trust back in the trust fund” or continue to allow the Harbor Maintenance Tax assessment on cargo to be used as general revenue applied against the Federal budget deficit?

Last year the House and Senate produced a “sense of Congress” statement generally in support of the US-flag and Jones Act sectors. It can be interpreted as reaffirming existing maritime policy. Around the same time John McCain (R-AZ) reaffirmed his own maritime policy to undo the Jones Act in a speech to the Heritage Foundation. He and the petroleum industry actively urge changes to current law, which is to say, the end of the Jones Act. Meanwhile the Maritime Administration and the Secretary of Transportation will steer a draft National Maritime Strategy through the policy and political wringers of the White House. What will that document say about Administration policy and what if anything needs to be done to improve the US merchant marine or American ports?

In 2015 Congress will have to tackle surface transportation policy and funding. Will it include real money to renew freight corridors and build new infrastructure to support modern, intermodal commerce? Will Congress bite the bullet and find the money to pay it or, for that matter, to save the failing Highway Trust Fund? Past refusal by Congress to tackle this issue has depressed road and transit funding and been a principal expression of austerity economics—advocated by most Republicans, but abetted by many Democrats who also have avoided new revenue proposals—during a time when the country was climbing its way out of The Great Recession. Should this Congress produce a transportation bill that only perpetuates an inadequate level of funding and papers over the structural deficiencies of Highway Trust Fund financing it will not make for a convincing accomplishment.

The issues that may arise in the new Congress are many. Committees are establishing their work plans for the year ahead. What will the Republican majority serve up in the way of budget cuts and appropriations? Will a uniform ballast water policy finally become law? Will the TWIC reader rule that seems to assume container terminals to be at a lesser risk be implemented without alteration? How will Title XI vessel financing fare and will marine highway policy wither from inattention? Will Congress see a Federal role in helping ports, cities and businesses plan for rising sea levels and assist in improving waterfront infrastructure for the coming decades? Will the Coast Guard prepare helpful guidance and rules on cybersecurity and will the industry actively engage in developing it? Will Federal policy foster clean fuel initiatives for the freight modes and encourage off-shore wind energy development? How will the committees answer shipper complaints about railroads? Will a Republican Congress and a White House Democrat come to terms on tax reform, infrastructure funding, and trade policy?

At bottom, how well do the legislators of the new Congress—both Republicans and Democrats—understand, and how will they respond to, these and other issues of relevance to the port/maritime sector?  Pbea

, , , , , ,

New Congress. New Maritime Policy?

In Congress, Leadership, MTS Policy, Politics on November 15, 2014 at 3:30 pm

As the first draft of this piece was being put to page some small percentage of voters were practicing their citizenship at the polls. The prospects for the Democrats, as a whole, were not very good. Ten days later, and as I now refine this text, the field still is being cleared of Election Day debris. Not just the sloppily pinned signs on the road medians but prognosticators’ tattered reputations and a few shattered incumbents were strewn on the political landscape in need of reclaiming. By far more than the paid pollsters divined in the weeks before November 4, the Republicans were handed the reins in Congress and a number of State Houses. The party consolidated its control of the House and leapt into the majority in the Senate with at least 53 seats and a net gain of eight. The final count awaits a December conclusion in Louisiana where GOP prospects in the run-off are good.

Public dissatisfaction with government in Washington is close to universal but for reasons I will leave to others to explain the Republican Party benefited substantially more than its competition and that will keep them in power, especially at state level, for several years to come. As if speaking for his fellow Republicans across the country re-elected Gov. Sandoval (R-NV) said, “This is a night to savor.”

By the numbers, incumbent US Senate Republicans will be vulnerable in 2016…but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The matter before us is the next two years of the 114th Congress.

This week the rank and file of both parties in both chambers opted to retain current leadership. Soon we will learn the names to inhabit chairmanships, ranking minority posts, and committee lists. Meanwhile, in the current lame duck session the legislature is expected produce appropriations to keep the government functioning through the fiscal year. They will decide whether the Keystone XL pipeline project should be started, and take up a few other must-pass items before bringing the 113th Congress to a close.

Long before Election Day the US-flag maritime community nervously eyed voter surveys because of what a possible Republican return to power in the Senate could mean. Now, the controlling party is known; how that majority will be reflected in maritime related legislation will be something to watch.

One can easily find Republican legislators who are considered friends of the US maritime industry, whether driven by interest in US-flag cargo preference policy, shipyard activity, the labor force, other sectors that benefit by existing policy, or just a sense of what a nation should say about its maritime capability, security, etc. But that doesn’t mean that the maritime community in Washington, DC was sanguine or unconcerned about the prospect of the GOP taking the lead in producing legislation. In fact, unions, shipyards, US flag operators and others with a stake in the status quo were in varying degrees of pre-election anxiety.

The community has been frustrated with the Obama Administration’s willingness to ease cargo preference requirements. Now, potentially as problematic, Republican legislators who, for philosophical or constituency reasons, have not been inclined to extend Ex-Im Bank authorization or fund cargo preference policy—both key issues for the US merchant marine—will have more influence in policy setting. Add to that the fact that congressional support for the Jones Act is lacking in some quarters where the marketplace is revered and shipper interests—including domestic petroleum producers—would exchange the US flag for lower vessel costs. Some ports hit hard by disruptive events and who need short term Jones Act waivers in order to manage logistics crises, may find some more receptive offices.

A few years ago Jones Act and US-flag interests started Maritime Industry Congressional Sail-In Day to lobby the Hill with a particular aim to educate legislators who are new to maritime issues. The old guard–those who recall there once was a House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, soon 20 years defunct—are nearly gone from Congress as a consequence of natural and electoral attrition. (The American maritime sector has suffered from attrition as well, with a reduced presence in international shipping and, in some respects, an aging Jones Act sector.)

More recent Republican additions to Capitol Hill are a decidedly more conservative population—some of them Libertarians and self-identified tea partiers—who are more market- and less government-oriented. They arrive in Washington with little knowledge of the American maritime tradition and even less of its policy and the rationale behind that policy. They read material from policy critics and, presumably, its advocates.

On the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee are Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) who, for example, have opposed reauthorizing the Ex-Im Bank (“corporate welfare”) and could be in the mix to chair the subcommittee with jurisdiction over maritime policy. Veteran John McCain (R-AZ), the likely next chair of the Armed Services Committee, has a record of proposing the repeal of the Jones Act. Referring to a McCain quote in a Wall Street Journal blog, a union newsletter carries this heading: “Sen. John McCain Calls Jones Act’s National Security Benefits Laughable.”

Maybe change is coming, maybe not.  If anything, there is a good chance we will see more jousting on US maritime policy.   Pbea

, , , , , , , , , ,

The Late Senator Frank Lautenberg

In Congress, Environment, Federal Government, Leadership, MTS Policy, New York Harbor, Politics, Ports, Security, Surface Transportation Policy, Water Resources on June 9, 2013 at 11:53 pm
Frank_Lautenberg,_official_portrait

Senator Frank Lautenberg
1924 – 2013

Last Friday was a somber day of steady rain as New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. News reports this past week cited how his passing was notable because he was the last sitting senator of the “greatest generation,” that chamber’s last veteran of World War II. His death came just months after Hawaii’s Senator Daniel Inouye, a wounded veteran of that war, took his resting place among the nation’s noted military and civilian leaders at Arlington.

(They also had a common  interest in the MTS—the marine transportation system. Inouye was a reliable and principal advocate for American shipping; Lautenberg for the landside elements—the ports and intermodal connections. Both were friends of labor.)

It need be said that Senator Lautenberg’s death on June 3, also is notable because it marked the passing of a champion of Federal policy to making communities healthier, the environment cleaner, and industry and travel safer and better. It was a personal agenda well suited to his home State of New Jersey but carried out with no less than the nation in mind.

In his 28 years as a senator he served on virtually every committee and subcommittee that touched on authorizing and funding transportation, civil works and environmental policy. For a period he chaired the Transportation Subcommittee on Appropriations while as a senior member of the Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW).  For a few years after the attack of September 2001 he also was on the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee. In recent years he chaired the Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine, Infrastructure, Safety and Security Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee (CST). In recent years he served on EPW, CST and Appropriations, including the Corps funding subcommittee, concurrently.

As was evident in his committee work his approach to legislating was to cover all the bases, or at least as many as he could. He championed improving airports and the aviation system, expanding the use of transit and passenger rail, modernizing freight transportation, bringing American port infrastructure to world standards, and securing them all from the those who would do us harm.

He was appointed to the President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism after the tragic downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and returned to the Senate, after a two-year hiatus, to help write and oversee anti-terrorism law after the downing of the World Trade Center towers. In those towers he had served on the Board of Commissioners of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey before being elected senator in 1982. His time with the Port Authority–and his building the Automatic Data Processing Corporation (ADP) from scratch–were credits on his resume in which he took great pride and enjoyed telling people about if the occasion would allow.

Frank Lautenberg put much effort into environmental issues. He gave his attention to the recovery of old industrial wastelands through brownfields initiatives and Superfund legislation and to making the Toxic Substances Control Act more effective. He was protecting the coastline whether the recreation beaches or the nurturing marshlands. In his last year he walked the Jersey Shore in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, secured bi-partisan support for his toxic substances legislation and, from his wheel chair, cast his final vote in support of tighter gun legislation.

He was a tough fellow and could be an relentless advocate.  Just ask the trucking industry that couldn’t budge him from the centerline where he stood in the way of increasing truck size and weight limits year after year after year. Ask the FAA whose employees’ merit increases were at risk while their work was incomplete on the redesign of East Coast airspace in the Newark/LaGuardia/JFK market. Ask Norfolk Southern and CSX who found the Senator immovable on key issues pertaining to assuring competitive rail service for his home port when Conrail’s assets were on the block. Was he always the advocate that some of us wanted him to be? No, but then you rarely find a senator who is that agreeable.

From start-to-finish Senator Frank Lautenberg was an advocate for his New Jersey and his United States, which he strove to make  better by improving the quality of people’s lives and the means of commerce.    Pbea

(A version of this ran on The Ferguson Group blog.)

 
 

, , ,

Functional (Not WTF) Government

In Federal Government, Leadership, Politics, Surface Transportation Policy on August 2, 2011 at 3:51 pm

~ Political Drama in Three Acts ~

Cast:  Persons who come to positions in government to make a point and others who come to govern.  Neither conservatives nor liberals alone are cast as good at governing.

Forward:  Some like wielding power but their interest wanes when it comes to the nuisance of making government function well. Governing can get in the way of principles, pledges and making points. For some, government isn’t complicated; it’s just in the way. It’s the root of all ailments. They reach for the lancet with no less confidence as to the result than did medical men whose all-purpose remedy was to bleed the patient. Governing is not always done well, which makes it easier for the talented among the electeds and civil servants to stand out. 

I.  The urge to rant about the needlessly protracted debt ceiling decision-making is resisted here.  Today Congress finally sent “the deal” to the White House.

There is little evidence of  the art of politics; instead we witness the game of brinkmanship. Think playing chicken on a narrow country road. In the the driver’s seat are persons with an unswerving belief in what government shouldn’t be and a disinterest in the map of governance.  (They also sign a pledge to drive the car without benefit of headlights.)  They would just as soon call people names than to the negotiation table.

Props to the White House writer who came up with this for President Obama: “…for the first time ever, we could lose our country’s AAA credit rating…because we didn’t have a AAA political system to match…”  

That some people did come to town to be Governers may be what eventually pulls our national fanny out of the fire but one fears that the flames will burn hot for a good while longer.

Governers brought about the Simpson-Bowles fiscal reform commission, sweated over the details of its report, and were prepared to act on that report. Governers tried to make the “Biden negotiations” work…and didn’t walk out.  Governers make up the Senate’s bipartisan “Gang of Six.”  Whatever terms of agreement over fiscal policy to emerge from the fire over the next year will be founded in such efforts.

II.   The House panel that held longest to a bipartisan spirit in an era of increasing rancor is the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.  Road projects know no party as the saying goes.

In July, Chairman John Mica (R-FL) released the highlights of his planned surface transportation bill.  It read much as he said it would.  Reforms, consolidations, and reined-in spending to match reduced Highway Trust Fund revenue. It is based on harsh reality and a tax-averse party caucus.

That interest groups responded with concerns about program eliminations and slashed funding was hardly surprising but the response from Mica’s Democratic counterpart was.  Nick Rahall’s (D-WV) sharp words may not sound unusual in today’s Washington but observers noted the change for a committee where the chair and ranking member stand together on most things and respectfully disagree on the rest.

In the last scene is the Federal Aviation Administration bill.  Mr. Mica takes on both House Democrats and Senate counterparts of both parties over disputed issues in the long unresolved bill that authorizes funding for aviation programs. He put a provocative provision in the House-passed extension and dared the Senate to not approve it. It didn’t. As Congress beats it out of town for the August recess this other Capitol stand-off leaves USDOT holding the bag with 4,000 non-critical FAA staff forced to stay home and contractors around the country ordered to stop work on airport projects.

III.   Not without reason many States are concerned, even alarmed, at the damage that can be done by non-indigenous invasive species.  Great Lakes States have a long history of struggling with what can arrive in vessel ballast water.  But what concerns certain regions of the country also concerns the United States and other nations.

Solutions to an international problem carried in the tanks of global shipping rightly belong to Washington and the International Maritime Organization.  A patchwork of regulation at the State level is opposed by the maritime community that values uniform rules from port to port.

When New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued its regulation the response from the industry was predictable and especially vigorous. Why? Besides being imposed at the State level it set an un-enforceable, technologically unachievable standard that initially is 100-times more restrictive and, later, 1000-times tougher than the IMO standard, which the US Coast Guard also is expected to require initially. (A committee background memo provides a summary on the issue.)

Governor Andrew Cuomo and his environmental commissioner inherited the DEC requirement that the agency regulators have insisted on despite all reasoned arguments and documented findings to the contrary.  Those regulators made individual vessel operators–a thousand?–apply for an extension of the implementation date so they would not have to meet the un-meetable standard.  They were held in suspense until February 2011, beyond the implementation date, when DEC finally sent out letters of extension. Most recently, Steve LaTourette (R-OH) decided that New York was not taking the concerns of others seriously. So he did something to get Albany’s attention.

Perhaps reason will prevail.  Industry and other States from whose waters shipping would be effectively barred if the regulation is enforced in New York waters await a decision by the new administration.  It’s called governing.   Pbea

, , ,

The Rush/No-Rush to Replace SAFETEA-LU

In Infrastructure, Politics, Surface Transportation Policy, Uncategorized on May 26, 2011 at 4:39 pm

You’d think that Congress and the Administration are proud of SAFETEA-LU.

That’s the “bridge-to-nowhere”, 6000+ earmark, strangely named measure that was signed into law in 2005 and immediately trashed on the front page of Parade (yes, Parade!), on editorial pages of all stripes, and by interested interest groups.

Freight stakeholders were grossly disappointed by the final product of a seemingly endless process born of a White House that didn’t seem to care, a Congress that seemed to care only about taking home projects, and policy makers who, for the most part, would have stumbled in answering the question: what is the underlying national policy and purpose?

In retrospect, the SAFETEA-LU experience was just what the doctor ordered.  Like the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise that premiered with a ridiculously entertaining first film and epitomized wretched excess by its third iteration, the “TEA” surface transportation bill franchise was not well served in 2005.  Time for a change.

The policy commissions (#1 and #2) authorized in SAFETEA-LU to look to the future and make recommendations for the next-go-round were among a comparatively small number of “LU’s” insightful provisions.  The resulting reports and recommendations emanating from think tanks and other organizations are urgent calls for reform.  A common assessment was that SAFETEA-LU does not address the pressing needs of the nation. The case is been made in the reports:

  • The National Interest (my caps) was lost in the flood of 6000+ earmarks.
  • The Highway Trust Fund is structurally flawed and is losing revenue.
  • Capital needs of our transportation system are greater than current funding levels.
  • American competitiveness is at risk if we ignore the problems facing a growing goods movement sector.
  • Too many discrete surface transportation programs limit the ability to focus funds on greater needs.
  • Metrics–performance measures–would help judge where Federal investments can have greater effect.

And there were more.

So you’d think the policy makers would be in a hurry to fix the problem,get “LU” off the books and put in its place a new stimulus for the lagging economy.

You’d think.

It doesn’t help that the public and their electeds are tax-talk shy.  That was a main reason why the White House delayed putting together a proposal for a new bill.  It is the reason why few in Congress are willing to talk even about adjusting the existing tax in order to plug the gaping hole that is draining the trust fund tank.  Formal appeals and press releases by stakeholders calling for action pile high.

Reading the signs as to where the key actors may be headed in recommending a 6-year bill…the Administration has budgeted a $556 billion without stepping onto the thin ice of tax talk.  The Senate is looking at $339 billion, which will require around $75 billion in undefined additional revenue.  The House appears rigidly set in whatever revenue the Highway Trust Fund fairy will collect in fuel and the other excise taxes currently in effect.

Like just about everything else in this town, it’s the talk about spending–or silence about revenue–that is governing the legislative agenda.

It’s not that key actors don’t want to get a bill written and made law.  They really do.

They understand the potential for claiming and real job creation.  They want to shake off the dust of inaction.  They actually want to solve problems.

Chairman Barbara Boxer and her Republican counterpart met the press this week. Chairman John Mica frequently and convincingly voices his intent to produce a bill this year.  And the President outlined, in greater detail than the others thus far, his policy direction when issuing his FY 2012 budget.  There are other signs of what passes for progress in Washington.  Freight related bills have been introduced and await movement by the lead committees.  However a good many seasoned observers do not expect a bill will be signed into law until after the 2012 election because of tax issue avoidance.

But let’s stay optimistic.  Next we need to hear from the tax committee chairs.  Because, in more ways than we might want to admit, it’s all about the money.   Pbea

, , , , ,

WRDA: Commonsense Earmarking

In Federal Government, Infrastructure, Leadership, Politics, Water Resources on December 20, 2010 at 8:01 pm

A restaurant is moving into our nearby Del Ray Alexandria neighborhood (and not nearly soon enough, I might add).  It is unabashedly called Pork Barrel BBQ.

The name–chosen by a  couple of former Senate staffers now opening their first restaurant–has plenty of context in the Washington area where “pork barrel” is a mud that gets slung by persons of all partisan and ideological stripes  deservedly or not.  The observation goes…”One man’s pork barrel is another man’s needed project” (or favorite eatery, as the case may be).

But let’s reject the term for such time as it takes to rationally debate the issue of earmarking.

The previous post on this blog discusses how a broad brush is being used in the “earmark” debate in Congress where schizophrenia has been in great evidence as party members opine on the subject of how earmarking should be treated by House and Senate rules starting next year.

You can tell that rhetoric and ideology are getting their way when House GOP leadership is telling the rank and file to cut their griping and just deal with it.  It being a prohibition on all earmarking (writ broad).

The thinking person should have problems with that.  Putting aside an obvious constitutional argument, let’s consider how not all project types are alike.  And to keep this short, let’s stipulate that while some earmarks are  little more than grand ideas others have been subjected to considerable analysis.  Put water resource projects in the latter category.

Federal water projects go back to 1824 when Congress told the US Army Corps of Engineers to make rivers safe for navigation.  Today the Corps’ civil works mission includes navigation (the Federal system of coastal and inland channels), protection against floods and shore erosion, and other project types.  Today projects are put through  an extensive and expensive series of wringers: environmental, engineering and economic analysis, EISs, White House sign-offs, reports to Congress, contracts between local project sponsors and the Federal government (covering sharing of costs, provision of lands, etc.), congressional authorization of projects that satisfy the various tests (see WRDA), and  subsequent funding decisions by Congress.  Oh, and there’s the public input opportunities along the way as well as more recent provisions for “peer” review of Corps feasibility studies.

As Amy Larson of the National Waterways Conference put it in her letter to Republican leaders, “water resources projects are scrutinized, arguably, to a greater extent than any other capital investment program in the government…”

In his letter of November 29, 2010, Kurt Nagle of the American Association of Port Authorities told the leaders “it is vital to find a solution that provides a process that enables investments in needed improvements in transportation infrastructure to move forward in a non-earmark environment, especially new-start construction projects.”

Yes, you are bound to find “pork” by someone’s definition even among scrutinized water resources projects but that can be managed through oversight by appropriators.  But if the leadership is not taking the time to understand differences among project types, the high hurdles that navigation projects must overcome to qualify for authorization and funding, or the simple fact that most of the nation’s navigation system consists of FEDERAL channels that Congress is obliged to maintain and improve in the national interest, then they appear to be engaging in little more than indiscriminate mud slinging.   Pbea