MEMORANDUM. Board of Directors. Kurt Evans, Government Affairs Manager. Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. DATE: February 3, 2014

Transcription

1 MEMORANDUM TO: FROM: Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority Board of Directors Kurt Evans, Government Affairs Manager Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority DATE: February 3, 2014 SUBJECT: Legislative Update FEDERAL State of the Union Address: In his State of the Union Address delivered to a joint session of Congress on January 28, President Barack Obama vowed to throw his energy in the coming months into creating more opportunities for the millions of Americans whose prospects continue to languish even as the nation s economy has improved. He noted that the United States has achieved its lowest unemployment rate in five years, the housing market has rebounded, and the manufacturing sector is adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s. However, the President acknowledged that Americans confidence has suffered some serious blows as the middle class has been worn down by the Great Recession, massive shifts in technology and global competition. President Obama weighed heavily on his concerns about the nation s growing inequity, and the importance of finding a pathway for Americans who are struggling in their quest to live better than their parents did. Inequity has deepened, he commented. Upward mobility has stalled. The cold, hard fact is that even in the midst of recovery, too many Americans are working more than ever just to get by let alone get ahead. And too many still aren t working at all. In his speech, President Obama also lamented Washington s dysfunction specifically mentioning last year s federal government shutdown and a partisan fight over raising the nation s debt limit as moments when we are not doing right by the American people. The President added: Let s make this a year of action. That s what most Americans want for all of us in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations. After five years in office, President Obama has acknowledged that he may have few chances left to shape the country through legislation, particularly if Republicans maintain control of the House through the final three years of his presidency. As he has suggested in recent weeks, President Obama reiterated in his State of the Union Address that he is prepared to use executive authority to push forward his agenda if Congress proves unwilling to work with him.

2 The State of the Union Address marked an inflection point less than 10 months before voters head to the polls for midterm elections that historically have been tough on an incumbent president s party. Therefore, the speech was designed not only to press President Obama s agenda, but also to frame a message for Democrats during the upcoming 2014 campaign season. In words that would resonate with core Democratic voters, the President made appeals for equal pay for women, for voting rights and for protecting pristine lands. The speech also offered President Obama an opportunity to hit the reset button after a difficult year that saw his standing with Americans fall as a result of problems with implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, controversial revelations about the National Security Agency s surveillance methods, and an uneven economic recovery. Even before President Obama delivered his State of the Union Address, the White House announced that he would sign an executive order to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour for workers serving the federal government through private contractors. In his speech, the President called on Congress to follow up this executive action with support for legislation authored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Congressman George Miller (D-CA) that would gradually raise the minimum wage for all workers to $10.10 per hour by the end of his presidency. Significantly, President Obama treaded lightly on his push to overhaul the nation s immigration laws, dedicating just a single paragraph in his State of the Union Address to what is expected to be the most ambitious legislative effort of the remainder of his time in office. The President expressed hope of forging a deal with House Republicans that would lead to a path to citizenship for the nation s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. Ahead of the speech, the White House indicated to Democrats that it would be helpful to the administration s strategy to give Republicans some space to develop their own course on the issue. However, finding an agreement on legislation will remain complicated, as Republicans have shown a preference for setting a legal pathway for undocumented immigrants short of citizenship a deal-breaker for many of the President s Democratic allies. President Obama also called on Congress to approve major trade deals with 11 Pacific countries and the European Union, which he sees as crucial to the goal that he set early in his presidency of doubling exports by But the President s hopes for the pacts face considerable opposition from his own political base. Prior to the State of the Union Address, dozens of influential labor, environmental and consumer groups sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to block the deals. If health care was the defining issue of his first term, President Obama is seeking to make climate change his legacy in his second. We have to act with more urgency because a changing climate is already harming western communities struggling with drought, and coastal cities dealing with flood, he said in his State of the Union Address. But while the debate over climate change has been settled scientifically, the question about what the federal government can or should do about it is not. Last year, the President released a Climate Action Plan that directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to devise new carbon pollution standards, and created a federal-state task force to look at ways to mitigate the effects of long-term rising temperatures. But GOP lawmakers have been aggressively critical of these and other Obama Administration attempts to reduce carbon pollution. Ever since President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) during his first month in office, spending on transportation infrastructure has been a key part of his jobs platform, although the subject did not have as prominent a place in this year s State of the Union Address as in 2

3 years past. The President did suggest using savings achieved through a comprehensive reform of the federal tax code to create jobs rebuilding our roads, upgrading our ports and unclogging our commute because in today s global economy, first-class jobs gravitate to first-class infrastructure. Absent this time around, however, was a proposal that he has pushed in the past to provide a $50 billion, one-time investment in transportation infrastructure to supplement existing funding and stimulate the nation s economy. He also did not use his State of the Union Address to suggest ways to solve the looming insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund, the big issue facing lawmakers as they consider surface transportation authorization legislation to replace the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21 st Century Act (MAP-21). MAP-21 is set to expire on September 30. STATE Transportation Funding: Transportation California and the California Alliance for Jobs, two influential groups representing the interests of private-sector entities involved in transportation, announced that they will not be moving forward with a ballot measure this November to establish a new source of funding for maintaining and rehabilitating the state s existing transportation infrastructure. In a memo released on January 27, the two groups noted, In spite of the fact our need to fix and maintain our transportation system is more acute than it has ever been, we do not see this as the year to ask voters to dig deeper into their pockets. Over a two-year period, Transportation California and the California Alliance for Jobs worked together to come up with a plan to assess an annual California Road Repair Fee equal to 1 percent of each vehicle s value as a way to generate roughly $3 billion per year in new revenues for transportation. This proposal called for using all of the revenues that would be generated for roadway, bridge and public transit system maintenance and rehabilitation, and for public transit vehicle replacement. Earlier this month, the Attorney General s Office cleared the proposal and authorized the two groups to begin collecting signatures to qualify it for the November ballot. Transportation California and the California Alliance for Jobs indicated that they will now shift their focus to working with Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature to identify ways we can inject temporary funding into the transportation pipeline until a longer-term solution can be achieved. Specifically, the two groups intend to push for accelerating the repayment of outstanding General Fund loans owed to various transportation accounts, and recapturing vehicle weight fee revenues for transportation, perhaps on a temporary basis. Currently, vehicle weight fee revenues are being used for General Fund relief. In addition, Transportation California and the California Alliance for Jobs are supporting constitutional amendments pending before the Legislature that would change the requirement for approving local special taxes for transportation purposes from a two-thirds to a 55 percent vote of the electorate. High-Speed Rail: The Brown Administration has asked the California Supreme Court for an expedited review and reversal of two recent decisions rendered by the Sacramento County Superior Court that have impacted progress on the state s proposed high-speed rail system. One is a November 2013 ruling that denied a request from the California High-Speed Rail Authority to issue a blanket validation for the sale of more than $8 billion in state Proposition 1A bond proceeds approved by the voters in 2008 for construction of the first segment of the project in the Central Valley. The second 3

4 decision from August 2013 directed the authority to rescind and rewrite its 2011 business plan before it could spend any Proposition 1A bond proceeds for the project. In its 49-page petition for expedited review filed on January 24, the Brown Administration wrote: The trial court lost sight of the purpose of the Bond Act, which is to build a high-speed rail system that will foster the prosperity of the State. The Bond Act must be reasonably interpreted to achieve that purpose. Instead, the trial court took reporting requirements out of context and construed the Bond Act s fiscal oversight provisions as a straitjacket. The petition also contends that the trial court s determinations threaten not only state and federal funding for high-speed rail, but also the State s ability to finance other voter-approved projects worth tens of billions of dollars on time, on budget, and as authorized by the voters and the Legislature. In response, the Supreme Court transferred the case to the 3 rd District Court of Appeals. It also directed the appellate court to consider the case in an expedited fashion. Bay Bridge: An investigation commissioned by the Senate Transportation & Housing Committee concludes that Caltrans systematically squelched serious allegations about the structural safety of the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The 50-page draft report, which was based largely on interviews with multiple engineers who worked on the project, alleges the Caltrans managers marginalized dissenters, fired critics, reassigned outspoken engineers, and urged those involved to avoid putting details of problems or issues in writing that would have to be disclosed under the state s Public Records Act. It is the finding of this investigation that there appears to have been chronic attempts to keep many of the serious safety allegations quiet, put aside and not dealt with in an open, businesslike manner in the public s interest, wrote Roland De Wolk, a veteran journalist and former Bay Area television news producer who compiled the report under a contract with the Senate Transportation & Housing Committee. In addition, the report notes that the Toll Bridge Program Oversight Committee a partnership consisting of Caltrans, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the California Transportation Commission (CTC) was given extraordinary exemptions from the state s open government laws that led to a lack of transparency and accountability. The report also offers recommendations for lawmakers based on lessons learned from the Bay Bridge project, including the establishment of an independent bureau of inquiry to investigate allegations about the safety of public works projects undertaken by the state. Caltrans officials disputed the report s allegations during a contentious hearing of the Senate Transportation & Housing Committee that took place on January 24. Committee Chairman Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord), however, remarked that their responses were unconvincing in comparison with witnesses who were interviewed for the report. The most serious of these charges is that there s been a deliberate and willful my words attempt to obfuscate what is happening to the public, DeSaulnier said. He told Caltrans officials: Sitting here today, I don t believe you. And I don t believe that the public has the greatest confidence in what you ve said. The larger issue is how we can restore confidence, collectively, to the Department of Transportation. Caltrans Reform: Released on January 30, an independent review of Caltrans calls for reforming the department in a way that would improve mobility in the face of numerous challenges facing California. 4

5 The $270,000 review, which was ordered by Transportation Secretary Brian Kelly and conducted by the State Smart Transportation Initiative at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, says: Caltrans toady is significantly out of step with best practice in the transportation field and with the state of California s policy expectations. It is in need of modernization and of a culture change that will foster needed adaption and innovation. The review emphasizes the need to reform Caltrans so that it acts more as a mobility department rather than a highway department. The review found longstanding problems in Caltrans operations, including a mission, vision, and set of goals that are not well aligned with state policy that mandates improved mobility while reducing traffic demand and greenhouse gas emissions. It also notes that Caltrans management practices are out of date with no serious metrics to tie managers performance to accomplishing the department s goals. In addition, the review cites a culture of fear within Caltrans when it comes to deviating from standard policies, which is stifling creativity and innovation. The 10 general recommendations found in the review are intended to address how Caltrans views its job, what resources it devotes to doing that job, and how the department manages those resources to the greatest effect. The general recommendations are as follows: Establishing a mission, vision and associated goals that reflect current state law and policy. Better matching investments to policy goals. Taking advantage of the state s institutional structure to help drive change. Aligning resources to desired goals. Reforming critical guidance documents and standard operating procedures. Strengthening strategic partnerships. Focusing on freight. Communicating more effectively. Managing for performance. Fostering innovation and continuing evolution. The Senate Transportation & Housing Committee is scheduled to hold an informational hearing on the topic of Caltrans reform on February 11. The State Smart Transportation Initiative s review will be one of the items discussed at this hearing. 5