Marine Transportation System

Posts Tagged ‘TIGER’

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Kindest and Other Trump Cuts

In Congress, Energy/Environ, Federal Government, Infrastructure, Ports, Security, Transportation Policy on March 20, 2017 at 11:44 am

President Donald Trump’s 62-page “skinny” budget proposal — he calls it his budget “blueprint” — is devastatingly consequential for most departments and agencies. (See my prior post.) It tells you, for example, that the State Department will take a 28 percent hit should Congress concur in this first Trump Administration budget request, but it is short on how the programs at State and most other departments will be affected. For that we will have to wait a few more months until the main budget document is to be released — or leaks emerge — and the various budget experts do their analysis.

Will Congress adopt the president’s idea of winners and losers? Maybe not. His proposal is hardly a strictly partisan expression to which all Republicans will faithfully adhere, even if it is in the direction that they want to support. Moreover, as much as he wants to see a big defense build-up, dealer Donald Trump’s budget has to be seen as his opening gambit in an appropriations process that is only just getting started. Meanwhile, the budget document and agency press releases provide some information. Here is what we know.

Corps of Engineers
The USACE civil works program proposed number of $5 billion is $1 billion less than current year funding — a 16.3 percent reduction — but, historically, that’s not so bad. That is actually higher than the Obama FY17 budget. Every White House low-balls the Corps budget. The annual fiscal dance is for the president to bid low because he knows Congress will respond high. There is no more detail to report at this point. If there is a caution here it is that the Corps budget can’t be viewed in isolation from the total Federal budget. This clearly is not a normal year. If the Defense Department and Homeland Security are going to benefit in the substantial way that the White House proposes, the competition will be for your program to lose less than the others. If Congress were to provide the civil works program with more than $5 billion, as it has in recent years, that might come from other parts of the budget that are already proposed for stiff reductions.

Transportation
The budget blueprint shows a $2.4 billion reduction in spending over current year levels — a cut of 13 percent — and contains enough detail to identify some major programs targeted for elimination. Not surprisingly, the $500 million, multimodal TIGER grant program is prominent in that category. The White House would remove this most reliable source of funding for non-navigation port projects, including inside-the-gate improvements. (About $51 million was awarded to six port-related projects in FY2016.) TIGER, started in 2009, has survived past Republican efforts to eliminate funding but it has had strong support from Democrats and even Republicans. The White House is not alone in suggesting that TIGER is to some extent duplicated by the FASTLANE grants program that was created in the FAST Act and is dedicated to freight projects. (The Trump budget retains FASTLANE.) However, that part of the five-year FASTLANE program that most interests ports is the multimodal portion that is not limited to highway projects. Much of the total $500 million multimodal authorization was allocated in just the first year of the $900 million annually authorized spending for FASTLANE. There is no such modal limitation in TIGER. We will see if appropriators allow TIGER to end.

The DOT budget also would also eliminate funding for long-distance Amtrak operations, start down the path to private sector management of the air traffic control system, end the Essential Air Service program that is a major benefit for rural states, and close out a transit capital grant program.

Secretary Elaine Chao issued a statement on the budget blueprint announcement. It includes an oddly incongruent description of a national budget that the OMB itself acknowledges does not address deficit reduction. It also references an Administration talking point that, while proposing to reduce spending on transportation infrastructure, the budget is consistent with whatever will be the promised trillion dollar infrastructure initiative. The Secretary’s statement explains that the “strategy behind” the DOT capital spending cuts “is to move money out” of existing programs and into “more efficient programs” in the still undefined Trump initiative. We will have to see how that manages to end up being a net plus for transportation projects. From Chao’s statement:

This is a strategic document that looks to the future, and is designed to send a clear message on deficit reduction. For DOT, it addresses the department’s discretionary programs, which make up about one-quarter of the Department’s total resources. These proposed savings are largely geared towards future program investments, so they will not have an immediate direct impact on our DOT colleagues. This is just the beginning of the budget process, not the end. We will see the more complete picture when OMB releases its final FY 2018 budget in May, and as the President’s infrastructure initiative takes shape. In fact, OMB Director Mulvaney noted yesterday that the strategy behind the savings in the DOT budget is to move money out of existing, inefficient programs and hold these funds for more efficient programs that will be included in the infrastructure package under development.

E&E News reported that OMB Director “Mick Mulvaney said the cuts to federal funds for transit and roads would be balanced by an infrastructure package coming to Congress in the fall. The grants proposed for elimination in yesterday’s spending wish list were targeted “in anticipation” of a more fleshed-out White House plan…”

The lead Democrat on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Peter DeFazio (D-OR), was not complimentary, and not without irony, in commenting on the Trump planned cuts for USDOT.

The skinny budget exposes that as a big, fat lie. These are real investments. They could be putting people to work this summer. It’s infinitely stupid for Republicans who have just taken over everything to give up TIGER grants, which are at the discretion of the Republican Secretary of Transportation, and I’m sure they’ll use them much more politically than the dunces at the Obama administration did. [E&E News]

Homeland Security
DHS is proposed to get 6.8 percent more in the coming year to benefit the construction of a southern border wall and heightened enforcement of US immigration law through technological and human resources. Significant additions of personnel — 500 more in Customs & Border Patrol (CBP)  and 1,000 more for Immigration Control & Enforcement (ICE), plus support staff — also are intended to strengthen border security. Another $1.5 billion is slated for cybersecurity activity to protect Federal networks and critical infrastructure.

The budget proposes to cut State and Local security grants by $667 million. Earlier reports suggested a probable 40 percent reduction in the Port Security Grant Program but analysis by the Democrats of the House Appropriations Committee concludes that the budget means a 25 percent reduction in the program, from $100 million to $75 million.

According to prior releases of information the budget includes a cut in the Coast Guard, but that is not highlighted in the materials released by the White House and DHS yesterday. Instead, the DHS release simply says that the budget “sustains current funding levels [for the Coast Guard]…which allows for the continuation of day-to-day operations and investments in the Acquisition, Construction, & Improvements account.”

The budget document also states that the Transportation Security Administration will experience the elimination and reduction of “unauthorized and underperforming programs.” Details presumably to follow.

Environmental Protection
Of all the Federal agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency is targeted by the Trump Administration for the deepest cut — a 31 percent spending reduction. The budget statement offers an ironic compliment (kindest cut?) in suggesting that the “budget for EPA reflects the success of environmental protection efforts…” as if to say, “job well done.” The EPA section appears to be the only one of the two-page department and agency sections that specifically notes the anticipated reduction in personnel — “3,200 fewer positions.”

The proposed budget provides “robust funding for critical drinking and wastewater infrastructure” that is comparable to current levels. It ends funding for Obama’s “Clean Power Plan, international climate programs, climate change research and partnership programs, and related efforts…” It reduces the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance budget, reduces Categorical Grants funding, and “eliminates more than 50 EPA programs that are “lower priority,” “poorly performing,” and “duplicative.”

The budget document proposal to end funding for multi-state regional efforts such as restoring Chesapeake Bay. The proposal to end funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative  is no partisan matter. Nine senators led by Rob Portman (R-OH) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) sent a letter to the White House expressing their concerns, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) joined them in opposing the cuts.  Pbea

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Ports Then, Ports Now

In Congress, Federal Government, Infrastructure, Ports, Surface Transportation Policy on May 4, 2015 at 10:08 pm

Not all that long ago U.S. ports—principally through the public port authorities—were minor and largely absent players in the Federal transportation policy discussion. Port authorities and marine terminals engaged attorneys who tended to the infrequent channel project and to regulatory matters before Federal commissions. Seaports were (and still are) creatures of states and municipal level government. There was no Federal funding to speak of. Ports were assisted in the form of navigation channels constructed and maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers through the Civil Works program—a program in the control of legislators, who reserved the authority to approve projects, and engineers, who were told to implement the projects. Even in the case of port channels the appropriated sums did not go to port authorities but were cycled within the Federal government and to its contractors.

Back then U.S. maritime related policy was tightly focused on promoting U.S. flag shipping, American shipyards and American crews. Ports were in a policy no-man’s-land between the water and land modes. In its early years the U.S. Department of Transportation had maritime jurisdiction through the U.S. Coast Guard. USDOT was all about building the interstate highway system and tending to railroads, aviation and mass transit. It was not until 1981 when the Maritime Administration moved into USDOT after 31 years in the Commerce Department. Even then the agency continued to be concerned with vessels, not ports and harbors.

By 1980 only a handful of ports had need for Washington representation focused on Capitol Hill and transportation programs and policy, beyond that provided by the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA).

The 1980s were a time of change. Transportation regulation was giving way to forms of deregulation. By the close of 1978 we saw deregulation take hold; railroad, motor carrier and aviation policies were being reshaped. At times ports were very interested stakeholders as Congress ushered in deregulation. If anything, they wanted to be assured of sufficient rail service, preferably the competitive kind. The Shipping Act of 1984 took the maritime sector a few steps toward deregulation, with some implications for harbors, but greater reforms had to wait until the Ocean Shipping Act of 1998.

It was not until the mid-eighties that ports entered the center ring of Washington policy deliberation. Most of the Carter and Reagan years constituted a legislative dry spell for water resource bills. Ready plans for navigation improvements and proposed feasibility studies awaited action. “User fee” had a certain cachet in the Reagan years. The message to Congress was clear: in return for the president’s willingness to sign a projects bill some reforms would be required and Federal project costs would be offset. Local project sponsors would have to share the cost of improving channel projects. Port users would have to cover a substantial portion of Federal channel maintenance costs. Defining who was to pay, and how much, divided ports into two opposing coalitions. It was not a lasting split but it highlighted differences among the harbors, their physical characteristics, their cargo volume, and their cargo kind.

The resulting Water Resources Development Act of 1986 was landmark legislation that reset navigation and other water resources policy. It also triggered an awareness on the part of ports to be present and active in Washington, both through individual representation and associations.

In the 1990s the Department of Transportation developed an interest in the port sector and the condition of water and land access routes to marine terminals. The department’s jurisdiction did not include the system of channels–and the Corps of Engineers jealously guarded that historic jurisdiction–but it rightly saw the importance of efficient access to the port facilities regardless of the mode taken. Moreover, port and other freight interest groups collaborated in calling on policy makers to give their attention to freight mobility.

In 1991 Congress enacted surface transportation legislation–its prior iterations known simply as “the highway bill”–and in doing so finally adopted intermodalism as a desirable direction for policy. The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 did not create an avenue for Federal aid for port facilities but it did hint at a line that would be crossed years later, when Federal dollars helped make improvements inside the terminal gates. The ISTEA sausage-making experience inspired trade groups to form the Freight Stakeholders Coalition. In the twenty-five 25 years that followed the coalition celebrated some successes and today is still at work looking to strengthen Federal freight infrastructure policy.

One of the first intermodal efforts by USDOT, in conjunction with the National Academy of Sciences’ Transportation Research Board, was to examine the state of access to ports by the land modes. TRB’s 1993 report, Landside Access to U.S. Ports was followed the next year when the ISTEA-created National Commission on Intermodal Transportation published its report, Toward a National Intermodal Transportation System. The case was being made with evidence mounting. In 2000, the results of another congressional mandated study was reported by USDOT on National Highway System Intermodal Connectors. Freight infrastructure as it led to and departed from marine terminal areas was in poor condition. Actually doing something about it had to wait a while longer for SAFETEA-LU (2005) and MAP-21 (2012).

One other marker along the policy path deserves mentioning. In 1997 Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater initiated a look into what he referred to as the “marine transportation system,” which by definition is port-centered and extends beyond the terminal gate to include the access modes and intermodal operations. USDOT convened stakeholder sessions in port cities and then a national conference on the MTS. The resulting 1999 report–An Assessment of the U.S. Marine Transportation System—included recommendations, among them the facilitation of landside access to ports and the formation of an interagency Committee on the Marine Transportation System and a stakeholder Marine Transportation System National Advisory Council. Those and certain other recommendations were implemented and have contributed to improvements in both freight operations and the port policy discussion.

In September 2001 the rationale for port security measures was instantly revised, making it so much more than a matter of smuggling and cargo theft. Securing both the ports and vessels took on an urgency that made for a sharp learning curve for government and private sector alike. A ship entering a port represented a new vulnerability for the U.S. For a start, Congress produced the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002. The Coast Guard was given new responsibility, multi-stakeholder port security committees were formed, and facility plans were required. Fences and cameras went up where there had been none. The Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) was created for the maritime sector. The Port Security Grants Program was created and before long it was funded annually at $400 million, the dollar level being a particular success of the ports’ American Association of Port Authorities.

Then, in 2009, the severe recession prompted the new administration and Congress to formulate an economic stimulus package that included a $1.5 billion dollar competitive grant program for “shovel ready“ construction projects. What came to be called TIGER grants were awarded not just for the usual road and transit systems but also to ports and heavy rail. Freight related projects snared a third of the grants to the surprise of everyone including the folks at USDOT who realized that freight investments could be evaluated in cost/benefit terms more readily than Biden in Charlestonthe usual stretch of highway or transit rail. To date, TIGER grants have gone to 24 port projects in 16 states for a total of over $344 million in Federal funds alone.

Today the Federal government takes great interest in ports. They are seen as vital gateways for U.S. exports and critical modal connectors that when not functioning well can diminish American competitiveness. They are potentially vulnerable to terrorist attacks and are bell-weathers for our economic well-being. And they make impressive backdrops for politicians.

In 1985 I convened a meeting of a few port lobbyists to talk about shared issues. Thirty years later, a considerably larger Washington Port Reps group continues to meet and discuss a much larger issue agenda.  Pbea

(Thank you, Lillian Borrone and Jean Godwin, for your memory-jogging assistance.)