How about putting transportation back in the transportation bill?

Well, well, well, what a surprise. Our U.S. Congress and Senate failed to agree on a transportation bill by the April 1 deadline, opting for yet another — as in ninth — extension of the 2005 bill. The extension, or Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2012, buys them another 90 days to come up with something they can agree on. (The Federal Aviation Administration had 22 extensions before Congress finally approved a multi-year bill this year.)

Congress passed their version of the Transportation bill in February. The Senate passed their version in March. But ne’er the two could meet.

What’s the problem? I made the mistake of...



finding the full text of both bills with a combined count of more than 2,500 pages. Worse, I actually read them over the past few weeks.

Both bills have catchy descriptive names that capture their respective themes. The House bill, called The American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, with a budget of about $260 billion over five years, passed the House in February. The Senate bill, called Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century or MAP-21 Act (don’t you just love those cute little acronyms?), with a budget of about $109 billion over two years, passed the Senate in March.

As expected, both bills give some ink to the concrete, steel and labor of our transportation infrastructure needs, and both are committed to something called Intelligent Transportation Systems. So there are points of agreement between the two. Except that most of the pages are filled with so much other “stuff” that I had to remind myself constantly that they are transportation bills.

Both bills address the Driving While Intoxicated problem through the use of Ignition Interlock systems, which are little breathalyzer machines connected to cars that prevent the car from starting if the driver has been drinking. The House bill wants the program expanded in all states for frequent offenders. The Senate wants them as standard equipment on all cars.

Not sure what DWI has to do with transportation infrasture, but I'm glad to know both bodies recognize the problem considering that more than 10,000 lives are lost each year to drunk drivers in our nation. If we lost that many innocent civilians by terrorist attacks, we’d mobilize our entire military. (The American Beverage Institute is lobbying hard against both proposals, by the way.)

Except for the DWI parts, most of the conflict between the two bills can be found in all that other “stuff” that is not related to transportation infrasture. 

The House’s American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act appears on the surface as industry-friendly and expeditious in getting those road, bridge and rail construction jobs moving right away — but not so much when you dig into the details.

This bill definitely grants more authority to the states over local community needs when it comes to roads, energy development impacts, and railroads, including environmental assessment waivers for certain rights-of-way.

Living in Western Colorado, we know that federal money to our state doesn’t always flow to the Western Slope and not always to the state’s best interests.

The House bill has a couple of companion bills under its transportation umbrella, including Protecting Investment in Oil Shale the Next Generation of Environmental, Energy, and Resource Security Act or PIONEERS Act (another adorable acronym) sponsored by Colorado’s own Doug Lamborn (R-5). We are darned lucky to have that guy on our side; if it’s in the ground and has value, you can bet Lamborn is working hard to legislate it right on out of there.

The Senate’s MAP-21 Act is all about studies, research and development. If it is even remotely related to transportation, the Senate bill has a research study planned for it; there will be jobs galore for researchers. Data-driven, that bunch is.

As with the House’s bill, there was odd stuff in the Senate’s as well. See, for instance, “Sec. 40305. 100 percent continuous levy on payments to Medicare providers and suppliers.” What?

And in later pages, there is a section titled, “Special measures for jurisdictions, financial institutions, or international transactions that are of primary money laundering concern or significantly impede United States tax enforcement,” including denial of passport issuance for people who owe back taxes. What does that have to do with transportation?

Because I needed some seasoned insight into this problem. I called former Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming) and asked if he knows why the House and Senate don’t just pass the transportation infrastructure parts that they can agree on, then deal with all that other “stuff” separately.

"Because they couldn’t get most of that extra ‘stuff,’ as you call it, passed any other way,” he said. “You can’t cut and spend your way out; you have to have a blend. Transportation bills are always difficult. There's a lot of money for their states tied to those bills, and they're all trying to screw each other to get it. Now they want to blame [President] Obama, blame [House Speaker] Boehner, when they need to blame themselves and get back to working on how they can do what's best for the American people."

Thanks Alan. I could’ve saved myself 2,500 pages of reading. Want to take any bets on whether they’ll pass a tenth extension on the old bill come July 1?

This is excerpted from my weekly column published in The Daily Sentinel as published in the Sunday, April 8, 2012 edition of the newspaper.