President’s Message

Working together to reauthorize our transportation future

Diane Linderman, P.E., PWLF

APWA President

am always impressed with how our American Public Works

Association volunteers and staff have worked together over the years to promote the causes that are important to our members! In this month’s Reporter issue, we focus on transportation issues and APWA’s efforts in the areas of transportation funding and project delivery.

The APWA Reauthorization Task Force, the Transportation Committee, and the Government Affairs Committee have joined together to hold two years of Transportation Summits in Washington, D.C. During these summits, teams of APWA members fanned out and visited their congressional representatives to urge them to approve a federal transportation bill, to renew certainty in the transportation funding process, and to make it less expensive and cumbersome to use federal funds to deliver projects. We believe that our efforts have raised our knowledge and our profile, but after five years of activities, national transportation funding still faces an uncertain future.

How did we get to this point: three years past the expiration of the federal bill, nine shortterm extensions and a conference committee with little common ground? Let us remember back to the early 1990s, when hope (and funding) ran high…

In 1991, President George H.W. Bush signed the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) into law, changing the nature of transportation funding (and acronyms!) for the next two decades. ISTEA (“iced tea”) was a landmark reauthorization of the federal transportation funding act. The chief author of ISTEA was Congressman Norman Y. Mineta (D-California), President George W. Bush’s future Secretary of Transportation. ISTEA revamped the old federal funding system and distributed Surface Transportation Program monies through a newlyempowered regional planning agency: the Metropolitan Planning Organization. These metropolitan planning organizations under ISTEA would receive more control over funding of local transportation projects. ISTEA also gave new meaning to “multimodalism” by expanding the funding for bicycle, pedestrian and other nontraditional modes of transportation, supplied by the transit-flexible Surface Transportation Program, the new Transportation Enhancement program, and the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program for areas that did not meet federal air quality standards.

ISTEA expired in 1997 and was replaced with Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), which was replaced in 2005 by the torturously-named Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users (SAFETEALU). These subsequent measures both represented slight rebrewing

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of the original “TEA.” In an effort to shape the next transportation act, APWA formed its Transportation Reauthorization Task Force in 2006. John German of the APWA Texas Chapter leads the 10-member task force, which includes transportation professionals at local and state levels, representing public and private entities, from various regions of the United States.

The Transportation Reauthorization Task Force began meeting in 2007, two years ahead of the federal bill’s expiration, to get a head start researching and planning recommendations for the new transportation bill. Little did the Task Force members know that they had signed up for a five-year-plus tour of duty! The Task Force’s chief goal for the authorization bill was to raise money to keep the transportation trust fund solvent. Trends showed that bankruptcy was on the horizon, because expenditures (and needs) were outpacing revenues from a gas tax that hadn’t been raised since 1994.

In its first year, the Task Force released a paper on reauthorization principles that made the following recommendations:

• Raise the Motor Fuel Tax and

Index It to Inflation • Explore the Establishment of

Vehicle-Mileage Fees • Expand Access to Innovative

Financing Tools • Utilize a Utility System/Enterprise

Funds Model • Provide Incentives for Local

Financing

Two independent federal commissions shared the Task Force’s recommendations to increase the federal gas tax and to look toward a long-term funding solution, such as a tax per vehicle mile traveled.

Fast forward to 2012 and the political gridlock of today: there have been nine short-term extensions of SAFETEA-LU. As of this writing, there is still no new federal transportation bill, although the Senate passed their two-year version and the House reported out of committee (but did not pass) their own, different five-year version of the bill. Working in tandem with the Transportation Committee, the APWA Task Force has moved from playing offense to defense, shifting its goals from seeking a new, more stable transportation revenue source, to preserving the existing levels of funding and protecting the multimodal commitment of ISTEA.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) crafted a comprehensive federal transportation proposal, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21, S 1813), which passed in the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 74-22. Facing their inability to agree on the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012 (HR 7), their own version of a reauthorization

AMERICAN PUBLIC WORKS ASSOCIATION

Mission Statement: The American Public Works Association serves its members by promoting professional excellence and public awareness through education, advocacy and the exchange of knowledge.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

PRESIDENT

Diane Linderman, P.E., PWLF Director, Urban Infrastructure and Development Services VHB, Inc. Richmond, VA

PRESIDENT-ELECT

Elizabeth Treadway, PWLF Principal AMEC Environment and Infrastructure Johnson City, TN

PAST PRESIDENT

George Crombie, MPA, PWLF, BCEEM Senior Faculty Member, Public Works Administration Norwich University Northfield, VT

DIRECTOR, REGION I

Rick Stinson, PWLF Director of Public Works Town of Wakefield, MA

DIRECTOR, REGION II

Ed Gottko, P.E. (ret.), PWLF Adjunct Professor New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark, NJ

DIRECTOR, REGION III

William (Bo) Mills, PWLF Director of Public Services City of Germantown, TN

DIRECTOR, REGION IV

Tommy Brown Superintendent of Fleet Services City of LaGrange, GA

DIRECTOR, REGION V

Linda Petelka, B.Sc., PWLF Manager, Wastewater Program Planning Section The Regional Municipality of Peel, ON

DIRECTOR, REGION VI

Larry Stevens, P.E., PWLF Project Director HR Green, Inc. Johnston, IA

DIRECTOR, REGION VII

Jimmy B. Foster, P.E., PWLF Retired Plano, TX

DIRECTOR, REGION VIII

Ronald J. Calkins, P.E., PWLF Director of Public Works (retired) City of Ventura, CA

DIRECTOR, REGION IX

Doug Drever, P.Eng., FEC Project Director City of Saskatoon, SK

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE, ENGINEERING & TECHNOLOGY

Patty Hilderbrand, P.E. Program Management & Development Manager City of Kansas City, MO

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE, ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Daryl Grigsby Public Works Director City of Pomona, CA

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE, FLEET & FACILITIES MANAGEMENT

Brian R. Usher, PWLF Director of Public Works City of Largo, FL

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE, PUBLIC WORKS MGMT./LEADERSHIP

Cora Jackson-Fossett Public Information Director II Public Affairs Office City of Los Angeles, CA

DIRECTOR-AT-LARGE, TRANSPORTATION

Susan M. Hann, P.E., AICP, ICMA-CM City Manager City of Palm Bay, FL

ADVISORY COUNCIL

(Past APWA Presidents)

Robert Albee Roger K. Brown George Crombie Nick W. Diakiw Robert C. Esterbrooks Jerry M. Fay Bob Freudenthal Larry W. Frevert Herbert A. Goetsch J. Geoffrey Greenough Ken Haag Erwin F. Hensch Ronald W. Jensen Dwayne Kalynchuk Larry T. Koehle Martin J. Manning James J. McDonough Robert Miller Judith M. Mueller Ronald L. Norris Michael R. Pender Richard L. Ridings John J. Roark Harold E. Smith June Rosentreter Spence Noel C. Thompson Tom Trice William A. Verkest Win Westfall Carl D. Wills

Executive Director

Peter B. King

Executive Director Emeritus

Robert D. Bugher

Editorial Advisory Board

Gordon R. Garner Neil S. Grigg Susan M. Hann Stephen J. O’Neill Kyle E. Schilling

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APWA’S PRIORITIES FOR FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION FUNDING

• Protect and preserve existing transportation facilities; • Improve goods movement; • Enhance safety for users of the transportation system; • Provide solutions to urban congestion problems; • Continue energy independence through multimodalism; and, • Enhance flexibility in the use of federal funds and increase process streamlining to maximize the efficiency of each dollar spent in the federal funding process.

Federal investment in accordance with these priorities is the key to maintaining the economic health, welfare and safety of our transportation system.

Excerpt from APWA’s Position on the Reauthorization of Federal Surface Transportation Programs.

bill, the House of Representatives instead approved another 90-day extension of the existing act, just to bring both houses into conference. The current extension now expires on June 30, 2012.

Key features of MAP-21 include:

• Funding equal to current levels plus inflation—for two fiscal years. • Consolidation of federal programs from about 90 programs down to fewer than 30. • No earmarks. • Project delivery expediting features, but not as extensive as those proposed by APWA. • Expansion of large federal loans via the Transportation

Infrastructure Finance and

Innovation Program (TIFIA) program. • Consolidates certain programs into a focused goods movement improvement program.

Both the House and Senate versions of the reauthorization bill have features designed to simplify the process of using federal funds, or reduce federal requirements, but the House version was more comprehensive and included an APWA-drafted provision to exempt small projects from onerous federal regulations. Despite the fact that the House bill did not gain approval and is therefore not in conference, this provision may still be considered for inclusion in the final bill. The Senate bill includes a 15% set-aside for off-system bridge improvements, which is of critical importance to local public works departments; APWA partnered with the National Association of County Engineers to add this provision to the bill. In their most recent visits to Washington, D.C., APWA members urged adoption of a bill longer than just the two years proposed in MAP-21, in consideration of how long it has taken for a new bill to be approved. However, the chance of a longer bill is considered slim, considering the difficulty in identifying sufficient funding just for the two years of the bill.

During the legislative process, APWA has been working to represent the needs of local governments throughout the country, and to ensure that the funding is in place for the long-term sustainability of transportation improvements in our cities and counties. The goal is long-term solutions (over political expediencies) but we are working to get the best funding bill possible given the current political environment. APWA and its members want more flexibility for local government projects, and streamlined environmental processes and procedures. We also want passage of a bill, not continuing resolutions.

Separate from the reauthorization process, APWA has focused on reducing the red tape involved in the delivery of federally-funded transportation projects, in order to save money and thus allow us to better live within the lower funding levels. APWA has partnered with the Federal Highway Administration on its project delivery streamlining initiative, Every Day Counts, an effort that holds promise for improving the delivery process within existing federal law. The APWA Transportation Committee has formed a new Project Delivery Streamlining subcommittee, led by John Davis of the Transportation Committee, and it is seeking new members to carry on this effort even after the transportation bill is approved.

Where do we stand today? By the time you read this column, it is still possible that the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will have met the latest deadline for expiration of the transportation bill, agreed upon a package that meets all of APWA’s goals and sent it off to President Obama for his signature— we can dream! But don’t cancel that Task Force meeting yet… It is also possible that Congress will have approved a tenth extension of the existing federal measure, and delayed action until after the November election.

Regardless of which version of reality exists, rest assured that APWA will be working to protect (and someday increase!) funding for local transportation infrastructure and to make the process of using federal funds easier and less costly.

Follow President Linderman’s blog at http://apwapresident.wordpress.com.