WASHINGTON INVENTIONS:Greens claim less for new roads

Maybe everyone else got it wrong? We thought the big “highway bill” (dubbed here Manna from Shusta) substantially increased federal money for roads. Everyone during the deliberations on TEA21 said so, opponents and supporters alike.

We wondered where the enviros lobbyists were when there was all the controversy about the bonanza bill for highways. Their Surface Transp Policy Project (STPP) which is usually so voluble criticizing roads spending seemed to have lost its voice. Went to ground during the debate over TEA21.

The general chatter was that STPP’s silence on the matter of the “biggest highway bill in history” etc was that it was also the “biggest bicycle bill” and a “terrific transit” bill and a “planners paradise” bill and that since they didn’t want to jeopardize those latter aspects they were prepared to sit through all that money going for roads while holding their noses. There was also talk of some diverting internal ructions.

Now that STPP has resurfaced however and TEA21 is a done deal they are singing a different and quite original song. Rather like Nixon over Vietnam they decided to declare victory and go home — they are claiming they succeeded in getting roads money cut, repeat CUT, at least something they call “new roads” money. They beat the road gang, they say, in a self-congratulatory puff issue of their newsletter PROGRESS.

“Despite a concerted effort by highway building interests and many state highway agencies to undo the progressive reforms of 1991’s ISTEA... the TEA21 legislation preserves and even advances ISTEA’s emphasis on a more balanced transp system...” etc

The most striking claim (all this is in their newsletter PROGRESS June 98 also obtainable from www.transact.org) is that there is a “real dollar decrease in funds reserved for construction of new roads” supported by a bar chart (see nearby) which shows about 3% or $6.5b in TEA21 vs 7% or $11b from the previous ISTEA for new roads. This is their lead story.

Now there is nothing in TEA21 or ISTEA referring to “new roads” or anything like it. There is no legislative definition of “new roads.” I talked to several Washington highway legislative wonks who said they had no idea how anyone could make the claim STPP made. Consistent with the enviro hatred of roads, STPP have previously defined new roads as not only greenfields new alignments but any rebuild of an existing road which increases capacity.

Tom Merlo chief of the budget division of FHWA says he knows of no way to distinguish “new” roads projects from other projects in ISTEA or TEA21.

I put in two calls to STPP, first leaving a voice mail with Roy Kienitz, the exec-dir, then later got through to the editor of PROGRESS, Chris Bender. In my question to him I paraphrased STPP’s claim that there was a TEA21 reduction in the amount for new roads and he broke in and said: “We did not say that. (They did - TRnl) We said that there’s a lower percentage of funds dedicated to new road construction.” I let that whopper pass and asked him how he computed “new road construction”. He said he had something urgent to attend to and would call me back. He didn’t call me back. Kienitz never called.

These activists are moneyraisers, political mobilizers, perpetual campaigners and after a period when their supporters haven’t heard from them a while they want to claim VICTORY to their supporters to show they’ve been successfully promoting THE CAUSE. They aren’t interested in facts or accuracy or clarity. They are spinmeisters in the worst Washington tradition.

USEPA funds this stuff

This isn’t just a matter for their supporters. Taxes pay for the STPP’s nonsense and misinformation and their perpetual anti-roads propaganda. It has the financial support and tacit endorsement of the USEPA. See “www.transact.org” Both the website and newsletter say that this “Transp Action Network” (“transact”) is a “partnership of STPP and US EPA’s Transp Partners Program.”

USEPA gushes in its TP document: “STPP is committed to bringing better data and, as a result, more informed choices into the transp debate nationwide. “

Catherine Preston who is in charge of the Transp Partners Program program at USEPA told us the agency is funding STPP among nine “activist and non-profit groups” but she declined to tell us how much STPP is getting. She says the STPP “transact” website is funded by the USEPA and must not be used for lobbying. Slanted propaganda at taxpayer expense apparently is perfectly OK, so long as it is slanted to suit the USEPA’s anti-roads agenda. The object of the program, Preston says, is to support “climate change policy” via reductions in vehicle-miles traveled. You can read all about the USEPA’s anti-highway program at “www.epa.gov/tp”