Both the House and Senate now have bills moving along nicely at an increasingly rapid pace. They are both heavy on valuable, needed reforms, but they disagree on the length of the bill, the amount of funding involved and where to find the difference between what the ailing Highway Trust Fund brings in and the total number of dollars written into the bill.

Talking to AEM President Dennis Slater today he reveals that the best short-term scenario he sees as both bills move ahead is to get the House and Senate into a conference as soon as  possible to work out their differences. The thinking seems to be that there’s not much to be done to the bills in their respective houses that hasn’t already been done, or, worse, won’t create some sort of blockage or reversal. Neither bill is being joyously received but why risk losing what looks like it’s at least not a bad deal for the industry and could be a lot worse.I mean there could be no bills, just extensions, or bills that are woefully underfunded instead of just being underfunded.

Given that there is broad agreement on both the need for a bipartisan bill and for the reforms addressed in both bills, you have a reasonable (for these times) foundation. And while the term of the bill and the amount and source of funding will be fiercely debated, a conference committee may be far enough down the legislative road to be the one place they might actually finalize something. Perhaps a case of ‘the buck stops here’ so we have little choice but to do something.

There is, also, the need for both parties to take some positive momentum into the election. As AEM, and others, say, there are no political potholes. You don’t want to be the guys in the conference voting for bad roads. So we lock both sides from both houses in a room and wait outside with the key, ignoring any pleas to open the door.

Here’s another thought – from me not AEM. Transportation Secretary La Hood has royally blasted AEIJA, saying “It’s the worst transportation bill I’ve ever seen during 35 years of public service.” If something of it survives a Senate/House conference and features in the final bill, will his boss be in a tight spot when it hits his desk in the pre-election months?

According to The Hill’s transportation blog the CBO report projects the highway trust to have $12 billion at the end of the current fiscal year, which began last July, and a $3 billion balance  in the 2013 budget year that will begin this summer. The reports finds by 2014 the trust fund, which is at the center of the current debate over a new federal highway bill, will reach zero. The federal gas tax, which is currently 18.4 cents per gallon, brings in approximately $100 million per day in revenue, by far the major supplier to the HTF coffers. But the gas tax is static and politicians won’t touch it with a fifty-foot pole. So gas tax income is going nowhere.  Does this mean a long-term reauthorization bill is spending money it’s not sure is going to bet there?

So even though we see the iceberg, no one on the bridge is turning the wheel.

Read the entire CBO report, The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2012 to 2022.

I would like to think contractors, subs, agencies,equipment dealerships and OEMs are excited and getting ready to move quickly if this bill can become a reality. After some years of flatlining it has the power to provide a very sharp up-shift in activity.

“This legislation may be the most important jobs measure to pass Congress this year,” Mica said.

“The American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act is the largest transportation reform bill since the creation of the Interstate Highway System in 1956,” said Mica. “This is a five-year bill that reforms our federal transportation programs, cuts the red tape and bureaucracy that delays projects across the country, gives states more flexibility to determine their most critical infrastructure needs, provides states with the long-term stability to undertake major improvements, and encourages private sector participation in helping to finance transportation projects.”

Mica also noted that the new legislation contains no earmarks. The previous long-term law authorizing federal surface transportation programs, known as SAFETEA-LU, contained over 6,300 earmarks. That law expired in September 2009. Since then, Congress has passed eight short-term extensions. Each party blames the other for the extensions.No surprise there.

There are not a whole lot of surprises in the bill, it contains what we expected after it’s arrival was announced last week. The reforms are impressive, and fortunately the Senate has at least agreed that reforms such as these are needed and should be implemented. On money and bill length of course House and Senate are at odds.The most important immediate question is whether we will see some steady progress in the movement of this bill in the House (and it appears this might be the case) and then a bicameral effort to turn two visions of reauthorization into one.

It remains the case that transportation infrastructure is the most doable bipartisan project in Washington. Even an old-fashioned cynic like me can see than in an election year its not a bad thing for both sides to be able to point to at least one major piece of legislation, one breakthrough, one influential act of progress, in which they can claim to have put party bickering aside for the good of the country.

But even with some bipartisan effort, timing is a factor. It is an election year, and the shrinking distance between passing a bill and the November vote becomes an important variable. We need some fairly rapid joint action if we are to get a bill passed this year. And of the course the man who must sign it is one the November candidates, another variable.

The Committee is scheduled to begin consideration of the transportation reauthorization portion of the bill tomorrow

In his summary of the bill,  Mica outlined the transportation reauthorization and reform provisions:

• Authorize approximately $260 billion over five years to fund federal highway, transit and safety programs, consistent with current funding levels

• Provide long-term stability for states to undertake major infrastructure projects

• Contain no earmarks, compared to the previous transportation law which contained over 6,300 earmarks

• Consolidate or eliminate nearly 70 federal programs

• Eliminate mandates that states spend highway funding on non-highway activities

• Allow states to set their own transportation priorities

• Delegate more project approval authority to states

• Condense deadlines for federal agency project approvals

• Accelerate the approval process for projects in an existing right-of-way

• Encourage states to partner with the private sector to finance and build projects

• Streamline the project delivery process and reduces regulatory burdens for rail projects

• Call for the funds collected for the improvement of the nation’s harbors to be invested for that purpose

• Ensure the safe, efficient transportation of hazardous materials in a manner that does not impose unnecessary burdens on the flow of commerce

We have waited and waited and waited (eight times) for a new surface transportation bill – quick, who won the Super Bowl the last year of SAFETEA-LU) — with details (there was of course a strong bill bill from Democrat Jim Oberstar, the previous leader of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee).

Current committee chairman John MIca has produced, on the steps of the Capitol, a bill. And here it is.

Spoiler alert — it is 846 pages.You read it, I read it, (or we both read most of it) and we’ll meet back here tomorrow,.

House Republicans are expected to propose spending about $270 billion in a bill that will span four and a half years . That’s not enough to halt the deterioration of our transportation infrastructure, although I think the House Republicans will argue that it is. It will help us jump-start projects that can address the most serious deficiencies in the system, allow some long-term planning and multi-year work which are both desperately needed, and it will create jobs.

The four and a half years makes sense when you consider the Senate wants a two year bill spending $109 billion and the House is unlikely to get the full six years the industry wants and needs. Compromise being the name of the game 4.5 is not a bad number. Should the economy pickup enough over those 4.5 years the next renewal (after the inevitable extensions) might find more funding, although its hard to be that optimistic given the current political climate.

GOP leaders will to introduce the bill today on the steps of the capitol. The House Transportation Committee is poised to approve the measure at a meeting on Thursday. The a separate committee has to fill in all the big gaps — where the money comes from. (The Senate bill faces the same shortfall problem)The Highway Trust Fund doesn’t have enough to provide the $270 billion. Republicans want to bridge the gap with revenue from expanded oil and gas drilling, but Democrats argue that (a) there will not be enough revenue to bridge the gap (b) whatever revenue will not come quickly enough and (c) whatever revenue should come from existing drilling and exploration not new drilling and exploration.

So we have a sort of Super Bowl week of our own. We get to watch the proposal explained and voted on and watch the hard hitting and blocking, the Hail Marys and deception plays, fumbles and controversial catches of some of the best in the game.

This cornerstone proposal of the American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act will reform and streamline transportation programs, cut red tape in the project approval process, increase states’ flexibility to fund their most critical needs, and encourage private sector participation in financing and building projects.

This legislation will be the largest transportation reform bill since the Interstate Highway System was created in 1956.  Furthermore, this legislation will contain no earmarks.  The previous surface transportation law contained over 6,300 earmarks.

As House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman John Mica prepares to unveil what should be a five-year bill with a $260 billion tag (and the Senate has a two year bill with a $490 billion tag ready) Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says it’s unlikely there will be a bill this year.

For most of last year it appeared we’d be looking for a bill after the 2012 election. Then the two intransigent sides found ways to be practical and progress happened. Now if we say after the election, we need to ask, how long after.

It is fair to ask, and I’ve asked this before, do we have to learn to live with extensions rather than assume they are temporary enough to wait them out. If transportation infrastrutcure is the most-workable bipartisan project in Congress, and it is, and we can’t make it work, look out.

Then again, I suppose progress wasn’t supposed to be predictably smooth. Take progress on a new surface transportation bill. Congress is back and this legislation is expected to take a spot close to center stage, at least with all the positive pre-winter break comments from Capitol Hill – both sides – you’d think it was.

Now Speaker Boehner has said the House will move an infrastructure-energy combo bill “in the coming weeks and months.” I know it’s not easy and can’t be planned down to the minute, but “weeks and months” is just plain vague. As in, your guess is as good as mine. As in, we’re not committed enough yet to narrow it down any more than this.

Most of the pre-break progress on a new bill came with some general, fuzzy agreements. Differences that are about to get as tricky to navigate as an Italian reef were not really addressed up close. Now the House Republicans want to tie bill funding to energy-drilling revenues and House Democrats and Senate leaders do not, or at least don’t see it as effective and so not worth pursuing.

And we still have a two-year Senate proposal that needs to borrow billions to keep funding at the SAFETEA-LU level,  a House version that falls short of that level, and a warm fuzzy feeling of bipartisanship that may or may not be warm and fuzzy enough to stand up to election-year pressures when push comes to shove in the “coming weeks and months.”

Dali. Surrealism. Still ticking.

When it comes to giving America the best transportation infrastructure it can have, the  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says, basically, think locally, act nationally.” That is, Washington should look at successful local and regional thinking and find a way to support it.

Writing in The Congress Blog in The Hill,  Shin-pei Tsay, director of cities and transportation at the Carnegie Endowment,  says “Innovative transport projects have caught on in a big way, especially with America’s towns and cities. But national policies lag far behind. When it comes to transportation policymaking, it’s time for Congress to stroll along Main Street.”

Talking about a Carnegie report, Tsay says it determined that, “…we found that not only does the current transportation system contribute to the national deficit by as much as $100 billion annually, it no longer gives the country a return on investment.”

The report, Road to Recovery: Transforming America’s Transportation, is the work of former senator Bill Bradley, former governor and secretary of homeland security Tom Ridge, and former comptroller general Dave Walker. It examines opportunities to change the course of transportation through its funding mechanism, says Carnegie.

Take a look at the blog entry before you tackle  the full report.

“You have to prioritize those things which are most important to you and infrastructure and having good roads and bridges and rail lines and air traffic lines and so forth are essential for a strong economy.”

Promising to find money for infrastructure was Mitt Romney on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. TransportationNation has the whole story. It’s not long, but it is good to have Mr. Romney on the record saying he’d borrow for infrastructure.