Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, we are long overdue to reauthorize our Nation's transportation programs. The last reauthorization, SAFETEA LU, expired in September 2009. Since then there have been seven short-term extensions, and the most current extension expires on March 31. I am pleased the Senate is finally voting on a bill, S. 1831, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, or MAP 21. A path forward for action on the House bill is still unclear so we may indeed need another short-term extension.

MAP 21 enjoys the strong support of a broad cross-section of organizations ranging from the AFL CIO, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the American Public Transportation Association.

This bill will improve the mobility of people and commerce while reducing traffic congestion and improving air quality. Investing in the construction and maintenance of our roads, bridges, public transit systems, trails, and rail infrastructure means people and goods move more efficiently and that improves our international competitiveness. And investing in infrastructure will create badly needed jobs. It is one of the most obvious things we can do to help boost the economy as it struggles to emerge from the great recession.

So I will vote yes on final passage of S. 1813. MAP 21 is a bipartisan, 2-year bill that provides level funding with increases to account for inflation. The bill would provide $109 billion over 2 years for surface transportation programs. Given the difficult budget climate this has to be viewed as a victory.

Our State transportation agencies need to be able to do long-term planning and a 2-year bill helps that cause, and is surely better than the short-term extensions we have been living under. Given the negative budget climate and the difficulty we had finding the revenue to offset the highway trust fund shortfall, a 2-year bill is what is possible, though I would have preferred a longer term bill.

Under MAP 21's highway title, Michigan will get more than $1.1 billion per year for 2 years, slightly more than under the current bill. Under the transit formulas, Michigan is projected to get a little over $131.3 million per year for 2 years, a little more than we got last time in formula funds. When it comes to public transit, Michigan is an all-bus State except for the People Mover in Detroit. Whereas the highway title takes great pains to ensure that the distribution of highway revenue among States is largely unchanged, the transit title changes the distribution of transit revenue among States to favor those States with rail transit infrastructure over States like Michigan that do not yet have rail transit. In an effort to keep Michigan whole in terms of transit funding, I cosponsored an amendment to restore funding to both urban and rural bus programs. I am pleased provisions of that amendment have been adopted in the managers' package.

My primary area of concern with this bill is in the formula for distributing funds to States and a lack of true donor equity based on contributions to the highway trust fund. Historically, about 20 States, including Michigan, have been ``donor'' States, sending more gas tax dollars to the trust fund in Washington than are returned in transportation infrastructure spending. Each time the highway bill has been reauthorized, I have joined Members from other donor States to try to correct this inequity in highway funding and we have made progress. In 1978, Michigan was getting around 75 cents back on our Federal gas tax dollar. That went up to about 80 cents in 1991, 90.5 cents in 1998, and 92 cents in 2005. Unfortunately, there simply isn't enough money this time around to improve the rate of return for donor States without taking funding from donee States, which we don't have the votes to do.

Further undermining donor State efforts is the trend starting in 2008 of nonuser-fee money going into the trust fund. Before that, the trust fund was purely user-fee funded, primarily with gas taxes contributed from each State. When gas tax revenues started declining with increases in fuel economy and people driving less because of the recession, billions of dollars were transferred from the general fund to keep the trust fund solvent. Thus the blurring of the line between what was paid into the trust fund by States versus what is given back to States in Federal highway dollars which is now both gas taxes and general revenue monies. This means when calculated in dollar terms, donor States, including Michigan, are getting back more money than they put into the trust fund, or well more than 100 cents on the dollar. When you look at the percent, or share, contributed to the trust fund versus the percent, or share, paid out compared to other States, an inequity among donor and donee States remains.

Overall, Michigan Department of Transportation, MDOT, officials view the bill favorably, particularly the program consolidation, increased flexibility, realistic performance management, and provisions to expedite project delivery. MDOT's director wrote to me that he is eager to see a long-term transportation authorization bill enacted because it is vital to providing the stability needed to improve transportation planning and project development.

There are no earmarks in this bill and nearly all discretionary grant programs allocated by the Federal Highway Administration would be eliminated. The result is that most funding is allocated to the States by formula.

MAP 21 proposes a new core program intended to direct funds to infrastructure segments that are particularly critical to freight movement. It allows the Wayne County Aerotropolis project to apply for grants under the freight program by specifically identifying as eligible an ``Aerotropolis'' transportation system defined as a planned and coordinated multimodal freight and passenger transportation network providing efficient, sustainable, and intermodal connectivity to a defined region of economic significance centered around a major airport.

MAP 21 makes substantial changes to transportation planning requirements at all levels, including using performance management through the planning process. It requires that State and metropolitan planning organizations, MPOs, include performance measures and targets. Along with these increased technical responsibilities, the bill raises the designation threshold for MPOs from those serving a population of 50,000 to those serving a population of 200,000, unless the Governor certifies certain technical criteria are met.

This could have been a problem for a number of Michigan mid-sized MPOs, including those in Battle Creek, Jackson, Holland, Bay City, and Saginaw. The MPOs in these cities have expressed concern to my office that they could lose their MPO designation. They argue that their organizations are comprised of local elected officials who are in the best position to determine local transportation needs, and this proposal could exclude local officials and their constituents from participating in the transportation decisionmaking process if the Governor does not certify them.

I agree that this local expertise in the planning process is valuable and that it should be retained. The MDOT officials who work with and rely on these organizations assured my office the State would want the existing mid-sized MPOs in Michigan to retain their MPO designation. I cosponsored an amendment to grandfather in existing MPOs so that they are not at risk of losing their MPO designation and with it the planning funds needed to operate, and I am pleased a modified version of this amendment was accepted.

I am also pleased the bill includes an amendment I authored with Senator Conrad which was adopted by voice vote. It would give Treasury a discretionary power to fight against tax evasions. Under the PATRIOT Act, Congress gave the Treasury the power to take a range of measures against foreign financial institutions or jurisdictions that it finds to be of ``primary money laundering concern.'' The Levin-Conrad amendment would authorize Treasury to impose the same types of measures on the same types of entities if Treasury finds them to be ``significantly impeding U.S. tax enforcement.'' Treasury could, for example, prohibit U.S. banks from accepting wire transfers or honoring credit cards from those foreign banks. This amendment, which is similar to a provision that I introduced as part of a broad offshore tax bill for several Congresses, has been scored as raising over $1 billion over 10 years.

I am pleased the bill managers worked with me to include language regarding the need to fully use the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund for operating and maintaining our Federal navigation channels, including the 69 Federal harbors and channels in Michigan. These ports and harbors support jobs, advance economic activity, and bolster exports. Maintaining these waterways is not only important for our economy and international competitiveness, but properly maintaining these harbors and ports keeps freight off of our highways and rails, relieving congestion and improving the environment.

Somehow, keeping our ports and harbors in good repair has not been a priority in budgeting and funding decisions. This sense of the Senate on harbor maintenance acknowledges the shortfall, and states that "the amounts in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund should be fully expended to operate and maintain the navigation channels of the United States.'' This affirmative statement puts the Senate on record in supporting full funding for our Federal ports and harbors, and is a good step forward in addressing this unfair situation. Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars collected from shippers are deposited into the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund but never spent, despite the fact that our Nation has a significant navigational maintenance backlog. Collecting fees from shippers and not using these revenues for their intended purpose is not only unfair, it threatens jobs and economic growth.

Including this important language in the Senate bill is an important first step to correcting our harbor maintenance problem, yet much work remains. I hope the House will take action on a transportation reauthorization bill so that we can work out any differences in conference committee. Along with my colleagues, I will be urging the conferees to retain and strengthen the harbor maintenance language to reflect S. 412, a bill I sponsored and which currently has 35 cosponsors, which would provide an enforcement mechanism to ensure that all of the funds deposited into the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund are used for their intended purposes: for the operation and maintenance of our Nation's harbors.

This bill takes some important steps to support green automotive technology. I am pleased that the bill supports the expansion of electric vehicle infrastructure by allowing highway funds to be used for new charging stations at existing or new parking facilities funded through the law. It also includes a provision authored by Senator Carper to include vehicle charging and refueling infrastructure improvement projects among the projects eligible to be carried out under the congestion mitigation and air quality improvement program.

I am proud of the fact that Michigan has two fixed guideway projects under development that will go through the Federal Transit Administration's, FTA, New Starts Program which will provide Federal funding to build them. These projects, one in Grand Rapids and a two-part interconnected project in Detroit, will finally bring light rail and bus rapid transit to Michigan to supplement our current all-bus system. I have worked closely with the Banking Committee to secure changes to the New Starts Program that will benefit Michigan's initiatives. I am pleased to report that this bill modifies the New Starts Program in a way that is favorable to these Michigan projects, including the Detroit project which has a more complex set of circumstances.

Michigan is developing two connected projects in Detroit: a streetcar circulator that will distribute riders within the downtown core along Woodward Avenue, built mostly with private funds, and a regional bus rapid transit network on multiple corridors leading into downtown Detroit, which will need Federal New Starts funds. Because it is largely privately funded, the streetcar project will be able to advance before everything is in place at both the State and Federal levels to submit the New Starts application for the entire program. FTA officials have told me they interpret the bill's ``Program of Interrelated Projects'' language as providing ample opportunity for the streetcar circulator project in Detroit's Woodward Avenue corridor and the connected bus rapid transit project in the same corridor to meet the New Starts requirements to apply as a single program and that one project can be built before the other project within a reasonable timeframe and still be eligible. This is reassuring as we work to advance this important project through the New Starts Program.

In conclusion, MAP 21 is a consensus, bipartisan bill that represents our best hope to get a longer term transportation bill enacted. I urge my colleagues to support it and I hope the House of Representatives will also adopt it.

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