Road hogs: will Congress cut back the transit pork? - budgeting for Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991

Reason, May, 1997 by Ed Carson

The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure recently expanded from 67 to 73 members, making it "the largest [congressional] committee in history," according to its chairman, Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.).

What warrants placing one in six House members on a single committee? Except for a few intra-city projects, the Interstate highway system is finished. Transportation spending makes up no more than 2 percent of the $1.6 trillion federal budget. But that doesn't measure transportation's political importance. Entitlement programs eat up more and more of the budget, but they essentially run on autopilot. (They may be flying into a cliff, but it is on autopilot.) And representatives can't exactly promise to bring home more Medicare to their districts. Transportation is one of the last areas where individual congressmen can personally deliver federal dollars to constituents in a literally concrete way. Or as Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.) says, the Transportation Committee is the "last place for pork."

It takes on added significance this year because the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 is up for re-authorization. ISTEA (pronounced "ice tea") provides the money - $155 billion between 1992 and 1997 - to state and local governments for transportation projects, with the feds typically picking up 80 percent of project costs. ISTEA is funded by a 14-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax (an additional 4.3 cents goes to general revenues) and taxes on diesel fuel and truck tires.

First, Congress takes care of its own. Right off the top come members' demonstration projects - "high-priority" projects, insists House Transportation Committee aide Jeff Nelligan. ISTEA contained 538 projects costing $6.2 billion. And what "high-priority" needs do these projects meet? Well, Shuster's hometown of Altoona, Pennsylvania, once got a $30 million motorized sidewalk. Residents may not be getting too much use out of it, however, because they're too busy driving down the $286 million Bud Shuster Highway. And that was when he was only the ranking minority member on the Transportation Committee. As chairman, Shuster wants to build support for the overall bill. So earlier this year he sent a memo to his fellow House members reminding them to submit requests for demo projects in their districts.

Most ISTEA funds are distributed using a formula that takes into account a number of technical criteria, such as vehicle miles traveled, diesel fuel purchased, and state population. It sounds scientific, but Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) calls the formula for the 1991 ISTEA a "witch's brew." Among other things, the formula relied on the 1980 census for population estimates rather than the 1990 census, because the older data favored Northeastern states.

Debate over the formula in this year's transportation bill will be fierce.

Shuster has predicted there will be "blood on the floor, I'm sure, over the formula before we're done." There are three major proposals, each with decidedly different priorities:

* "ISTEA Works." Governors and representatives from many states, primarily in the Northeast, think the current program doesn't need a lot of changes. That's not surprising, because their states get back more money under ISTEA than they pay in. Cities like ISTEA because it gives municipal planning organizations more control over where federal money can be spent. Cities and many environmental groups also like ISTEA's dedicated funds for the Congestion Mitigation/Air Quality program and for "enhancements," which include bikeways, walkways, and other transportation-related projects. Their connection to transportation can be distant: One city used enhancement funds to build a day care center at a transit station.

* "STEP-21." The Streamlined Transportation Efficiency Program for the 21st Century is the mainstream alternative to the current system. STEP-21 guarantees states will get back at least 95 percent of the transportation dollars they put in. Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and Gary Condit (D-Calif.) introduced the plan in the House, and Warner, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Transportation Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over highways, is leading the Senate fight. STEP-21 is endorsed by representatives and governors from states that are big losers under ISTEA.

STEP-21 would provide states with more flexibility about where they could spend transportation funds, allocating 60 percent as a block grant. DeLay and seven House committee chairmen told Shuster in a letter that STEP-21 would address what they see as ISTEA's two central flaws: "An inequitable funding distribution system that falls to allocate funds based on prioritized needs; and an inefficient, inflexible program structure that erodes the transportation purchasing power of every state."

Critics of STEP-21 argue that funding should be allocated based on state needs, not contributions. "These are projects of national significance," says Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening. "Under a system that simply returns money to the states, they would not be properly funded." He says highways in the Northeast are more costly to maintain because they're older, used by more out-of-state drivers, and hit with colder weather. Cities are skeptical of block grants, because dedicated funding for enhancements, congestion, and air quality would be eliminated; states and local governments could, however, use general transportation funds for those purposes.