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LaHood Committed to Obama’s Transportation Agenda
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Former Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) was not an obvious choice to become President Barack Obama’s secretary of Transportation. Transportation was never LaHood’s signature issue during his 14 years in Congress — though he represented an industrial and agricultural district whose businesses relied on all transportation modes to ship their goods.
But during his time in Congress, LaHood gained a reputation as an honest broker and troubleshooter who was a maverick within the Republican Conference. Equally important, he bonded with Obama — and just as significantly, with Obama’s White House chief of staff, former Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.).
Although he has been on the job for only a few weeks, LaHood sat down with Roll Call Executive Editor Morton M. Kondracke last week to discuss, in his trademark plain-spoken way, the economic stimulus package, the highway reauthorization bill and myriad other issues related to the future of the nation’s vast transportation network.
ROLL CALL EXECUTIVE EDITOR MORTON M. KONDRACKE: President Obama says that the stimulus package is going to contribute the largest investment increases in our nation’s roads, bridges, mass transit systems since the creation of the national highway system in the 1950s. How close do you come to that?
SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION RAY LAHOOD: Well, look, it’s an enormous amount of money. It’s between $40 billion to $50 billion in a very short period of time. We have a limited number of days to implement this and a limited number of days to get the money out to the governors and the states and the mayors. ... This is one of the biggest infrastructure programs in this period of time. Ordinarily, when you think about infrastructure, you think about over five years. You know, you think about a highway bill over five years, or you think about some transit programs or helping Amtrak with some of its funding. Usually that’s done over four or five years. Our goal is to get this money out the door within 120 days and get people to work this summer on building roads and bridges. Then there’s an enormous amount of money for high-speed rail, which is about $8 billion ... $12 billion for transit, again in a short period of time. Whether you’re going to have people making cars, building cars or just helping these transit districts with some of their funding, it’s a very comprehensive approach.
ROLL CALL: Is your bureaucracy capable of processing all this?
LAHOOD: We’ve put all the modes together, including the budget people. ... They tell me they are going to meet every deadline set forth in the legislation by the Congress to get the money out the door, in the hands of highway administrators, transit administrators and people at Amtrak, people that run airports. There’s money for airports. The answer is yes. We are going to meet the very, very tough, strict guidelines that have been set by Congress. Our team here believes they can do it. ... There will be a Web site established at the White House. We will feed the information in — how many people are working, how the money is being spent, who the money went to, no earmarks and money going out to some existing projects, some new projects, some that have been on the shelves in departments of transportation, for lack of money have not been funded, but are ready to go.
ROLL CALL: On the highway money, which I think is $27.5 billion, to what extent is that repair and maintenance and to what extent is it actual building of new bridges and highways?
LAHOOD: [On Feb. 11], we invited every highway administrator and secretary of transportation — we had 43 attend the meeting at the old [Executive Office Building]. Every one of them brought examples of projects that had been sitting on shelves, been sitting waiting for funding. I would say the lion’s share of the $27 billion-plus for highways will be for projects that are ready to go, meet all the environmental standards. You’re not going to see much of this money being used to fill potholes. You’re going to see this money jump-starting projects, getting projects going, funding projects that have been sitting on shelves. This is not going to be pothole money. This is going to be fairly comprehensive projects.
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As Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson once said of the Joint Economic Committee, “It’s as useless as tits on a bull.” But as that panel’s chairman during the 110th Congress, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) seized the opportunity to elevate the traditionally low-profile post to the forefront of shaping policy. Read Full Article
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