Hasan Ikhrata

Another victory for the Southern California commuting public was reached in the Senate last week. A bipartisan Senate leadership effort by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee was approved unanimously to fund a six-year transportation bill for transportation improvements.

The plan, dubbed the DRIVE Act, is a significant step in the right direction for a highway and freight system that has been losing ground for years. Now we need House leadership to follow suit and take action before the gas tax expires July 31.

Particularly noteworthy is the inclusion of a formula-based program for funding freight corridors, something transportation agencies have been pushing for years. To support jobs and remain globally competitive, a campaign of strategic investment in our freight system is necessary. The DRIVE Act’s National Freight Program and freight-focused Assistance for Major Projects Program will act as economic multipliers for years to come.

In Southern California, goods movement and related logistics industries account for one-third of all jobs and economic activity. With shipments into and out of our SoCal ports expected to triple in the next 20 years, having an adequate freight infrastructure in place is critical to our entire region’s economic viability. The new dedicated freight funding program is certainly a welcome and forward thinking action by the Senate. Unfettered goods movement is critical to supporting both Southern California’s economy and our national economy. We have a growing consumer base that is placing more pressure on our freight system and we need to embrace this opportunity for jobs and economic growth by expanding capacity and increasing efficiency.

Another significant advantage is the way in which the DRIVE Act gives local jurisdictions more control over which road projects receive funding. We believe these kinds of decisions are best made close to home.

We applaud the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee for bringing us this far. Getting the House to agree to support the transportation bill will be a challenge. The House is holding a hearing this week to look at impacts of using repatriation revenues from offshore investments to fund the transportation bill.

The federal gas tax has not seen a rate increase in more than 20 years, leaving the Highway Trust Fund heading toward insolvency this summer. Among the alternative funding mechanisms that has not seen much support in House Ways and Means Committee is a small user fee based upon a formula using vehicle miles traveled, which would eliminate another of the gas tax’s shortcomings: Its inability to compensate for greater fuel efficiency and alternative fueled vehicles that do not pay their fair share for a safe reliable transportation network.

Deferred maintenance and a growing backlog of needed transportation improvements is a national issue and leading to the United States losing its international trade competitiveness. In California, Gov. Jerry Brown has put that backlog of deferred highway maintenance at $59 billion. In Southern California, 28 percent of bridges — 35 percent in Los Angeles County — fail to meet federal standards.

SCAG applauds the actions of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and urges the Senate Finance Committee and the Commerce and Banking panels along with House leadership to pass a long-term transportation bill by July 31. The American public deserves action on this critical economic and mobility matter.

Rick Ebert

Farmers across Pennsylvania were disappointed, but not at all surprised, by the final Waters of the United States rule approved recently by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. The agencies not only failed to adequately address the concerns of agriculture in the final version, they actually broadened the scope of their regulatory stranglehold on land in the final rule when compared to the initial proposal.

Specifically, EPA and the corps broadened the definition of regulated “tributaries” to include landscape features “characterized by the presence of physical indicators of a bed and banks and ordinary high water mark.” As long as water sometimes flows in a specific feature and eventually reaches navigable water, no matter how many miles downstream, the federal agencies now assert regulatory authority.

The new definition allows EPA and the corps to define anything as a tributary, including dry land or ditches that are only wet during heavy rainfall, wetlands or historic wetlands. But the agencies’ expanded regulatory authority doesn’t stop there; the new rule allows them to regulate land in instances where a water mark is not visible to the human eye. That’s right. Experts at the American Farm Bureau Federation tell us that EPA officials can sit in their offices using desktop tools to establish “invisible” tributaries on private lands, even though the human eye cannot see water or any physical evidence of water flow.

This power move by EPA and the corps tramples over two U.S. Supreme Court decisions and the intent of Congress when it established the Clean Water Act, which limits the agencies’ power to regulate navigable waters, not dry land.

Meanwhile, claims made by the agencies that the rule does not regulate land are bogus. They simply refer to land as water.

Pennsylvania farmers are, quite frankly, offended by comments from top EPA officials, who say farmers oppose clean water efforts because they oppose the new rule. This simplistic, one-dimensional thinking is not only untrue, but hinders the opportunity to have real conversations about dealing with challenging issues.

Pennsylvania farmers are actively engaged in strong conservation efforts to improve water quality, reducing soil erosion and runoff from land through a wide variety of best management practices and no-till farming. We don’t appreciate the backhanded statements coming from EPA throughout the comment period on the new rule.

EPA has repeatedly stated that the rule change was needed to clarify confusion from two U.S. Supreme Court decisions in cases related to the Clean Water Act. Unfortunately, the new rule does not provide more clarity for landowners. Instead, it is more confusing and it makes it more difficult for landowners to determine if their farmland is affected and if they need to obtain a federal permit.

By the way, getting a permit isn’t as simple as paying a couple hundred dollars to put an extension on your garage; the permits typically costs thousands of dollars.

Even after EPA and the corps unveiled the final rule, they continued to tinker with it, making additional changes without public review or comment. There is a huge mistrust of EPA in the agriculture community, among small, medium and large businesses and some local, county and state governments.

We support two pieces of legislation — HR 1732, the Regulatory Integrity Protection Act of 2015, and SB 1140, the Federal Water Quality Protection Act — calling for EPA and the corps to withdraw the rule and start over by seeking input from state and local governments, small businesses and other stakeholders. HR 1732 has already been passed by the House of Representatives, while the other bill will be taken up soon by the U.S. Senate.

We had hoped that EPA would listen to comments from people directly involved in the process, rather than promoting an orchestrated social media campaign to solicit comments that reinforced exactly what the agencies wanted to do. The Senate Judiciary Committee is already looking into the ethics and legality of EPA’s lobbying activities.

We turn to Congress to pass legislation to force EPA and the corps to try again.

Sen. Jim Inhofe

Our nation has a long lineage of transportation vitality. President Eisenhower knew this in 1956 when he authorized the Interstate Highway Act. His vision, that the “…transportation system (is) a dynamic element in the very name we bear — United States … and without (it), we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts,” remains true today. Our roads and bridges are a vital aspect of our nation’s security and economic prosperity.

While it is not often the case that the government spends taxpayer dollars wisely — or on deserving programs — the building, maintaining and modernizing of our nation’s roads and bridges is one area any Constitution-abiding member of Congress should defend and work to properly fund.

This is why on Tuesday I introduced with Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., David Vitter, R-La., and Tom Caper, D-Del., the Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy Act (DRIVE Act), to support the vision of President Eisenhower and appropriately fund the very backbone of this great nation’s economy and national security.

Unfortunately, what was once the beacon of transportation systems globally is now deteriorating. Congress has kicked the can down the road for future generations; major projects and new innovations have either become exponentially more expensive or come to a standstill. Our roads, bridges and economy have suffered as a result.

One out of every four bridges has been found to be in need of significant structural repair. In fact, 430 of the 435 congressional districts across the country are home to structurally deficient bridges. These are bridges that school buses drive on to carry our children every day to school, bridges that freight trucks access to deliver fresh groceries and bridges that we use to commute to work every morning.

The sub-par state of our roads has caused traffic to skyrocket — 20,000 miles of our roads are overwhelmed with congestion. While many Americans experience the inconvenience of this congestion first hand, what’s worse is that it is felt on a larger scale too. Each year we waste billions of dollars on fuel, and as we transport goods a significant “friction cost” is added. Friction cost raises the price consumers pay for necessities like milk, coffee and toilet paper.

A solution is urgent, because today our country sits at a crossroads. Congress must act now and pass a long-term surface infrastructure solution to fix bridges, eliminate waste and reduce congestion, or it will continue to pass short-term extensions, causing our economy, global competitiveness and quality of life to spiral downwards.

The DRIVE Act is the solution we desperately need. It will revitalize our freight program, offer opportunities to put innovation into action and allow our nation to appropriately shift focus and plan for future needs and priorities.

The DRIVE Act also addresses concerns specifically expressed by the Oklahoma community, and I look forward to announcing those provisions at a press conference on Friday in my hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Passing a fully funded, long-term reauthorization bill is absolutely essential to putting America back on the map as the best place to do business.

And with the support of my colleagues in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I hope the DRIVE Act can serve as the vehicle to enact long-term reform to these critical programs.

Jim Inhofe, a Republican, is the senior U.S. senator from Oklahoma and chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Laura Barron-Lopez

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of senators unveiled a six-year transportation funding bill on Tuesday that would pump nearly $300 billion into the nation’s freeways, bridges, roads and mass transit systems and replenish a transportation trust fund set to go broke next month.

The six-year bill would increase funding for transportation infrastructure 3 percent a year from the last multi-year Highway Trust Fund measure. That means the legislation, known as Developing a Reliable and Innovative Vision for the Economy Act, calls for appropriating nearly $43 billion per year to the federal transit program -- if Congress can find a way to pay for it.

Top lawmakers on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee -- Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), David Vitter (R-La.), and Tom Carper (D-Del.) -- announced the measure on Tuesday, touting its focus on bridges, interstate highways, and freight transit.

“We are 39 days until the trust fund that funds highways and transit goes broke,” Boxer told reporters. “This is what you call an emergency.”

Boxer and Inhofe said they hope the proposal forces other relevant Senate committees into action.

Third-ranking Senate Republican John Thune (S.D.), who sits on the committee responsible for finding a funding mechanism for the highway fund, said it's now or never for the six-year proposal.

“I think if you have to revisit this again at the end of the year, and going into a presidential election year, it gets very complicated,” Thune told reporters.”The politics of it is difficult and I think that this is the kind of thing that if we can, if we can get a longer-term solution for, we ought to do that.”

There's a hitch though. If the Finance Committee can't find enough money for a six-year bill, it may need to shorten it.

“I think we can get pay-fors that will allow us to do a multi-year bill, but unlikely, probably, a six-year bill,” Thune said. “We’ll do our piece of it probably shortly after the [July 4th] break, and hopefully we can get something done before the end of the month.”

The highway fund, itself uncontroversial, has dwindled, stirring debate among lawmakers on how to pay for the ailing program. It has traditionally been funded by the federal gasoline tax -- currently at 18.4 cents per gallon -- but the tax has not been touched for decades, allowing the fund to lose ground to inflation and vehicles that are more fuel efficient.

The gas tax contributes roughly $34 billion per year to the highway fund, and Congress kicks in about $50 billion. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it will take an additional $100 billion to pay for a six-year bill. The measure proposed by Inhofe and Boxer accounts for a $90 billion gap.

Notably, the bill would provide incentives to states that tax drivers of electric vehicles. It also would set new criteria for states trying to build more toll roads to cope with a lack of transportation funds.

“Our nation’s roads and highways have suffered under too many short-term extensions,” Inhofe said. “This bipartisan bill also contains the hallmark accomplishment of a new freight program to prioritize federal spending on the facilities that will most directly benefit our economy, in addition to prioritizing federal dollars towards bridge safety and the interstate system.”

The bill also would boost money for roads and bridges on federal and tribal lands to $1.3 billion per year, which would help corrosion repairs on major national roadways like the Arlington Memorial Bridge connecting Washington and northern Virginia.

The bill may seem like a no-brainer, but in Congress nothing is that easy. The road to passing a long-term funding fix for transportation will be bumpy.

Inhofe hinted at the difficulty of getting Republicans and Democrats to agree on where to find the money, but said if he and Boxer could “swallow hard” on parts of the bill they didn’t like and come to a compromise, the rest of Congress should be able to as well.

Boxer admitted that the bill almost didn’t happen. “We, by the way, had kind of a dramatic moment. I think it was Thursday, and we thought, ‘Oh my God, will this actually fall apart?’” she said.

Still, the two senators said they were optimistic Congress would act.

“I think if you have a heartbeat and pulse, you understand this needs to be done,” Boxer said.

Inhofe said he spoke to many Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), about the six-year proposal, and expects it to get a vote on the Senate floor.

“Mitch McConnell is anxious to get it out. He’s going to be putting it out in conjunction with other bills that are there and it could be very soon,” Inhofe said.

The Environment and Public Works Committee is scheduled to consider the measure on Wednesday, leaving enough time for the full Senate to pick up the bill before the trust fund runs out on July 31.

Boxer said she expects Democrats will be “cooperative” and is “encouraged” by conversations she’s had with McConnell’s staff.