Congress: Getting Down to Business?

In theory, there's a lot of work that Congress needs to do this month, relative to transportation.

The current extension of the SAFETEA-LU surface transportation authorization expires on Sept 30, along with the federal government's authority to collect the motor fuel taxes and other fees that support the nation's highway and transit funding programs. While the White House and Transportation Secretary LaHood and among those who've have raised the level of concern about what could happen if these authorizations were allowed to lapse, the prevailing sentiments from Congress, including House Transportation & Infrastructure committee chair John Mica [R-Fla.], are that there will be another short extension of current authorizations, which may be followed up by an honest-to-gosh reauthorization effort (drafting of this legislation already is taking place in the Senate, and is being discussed in earnest in the House). This week, in fact, a short-term SAFETEA-LU extension is working its way through the Senate Environment and Public Works committee.

The Capitol Hill news media are going to be paying a lot of attention to the "Super Committee" (officially known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction) that is tasked with recommending debt and deficit containment measures that would influence federal budgeting for FY 2013 and beyond, if all goes according to plan. Despite the certain media spotlight over the ruminations and actions of this committee, bear in mind that their work is not expected to affect FY 2012 spending.

Meanwhile, action on FY 2012 appropriations is happening, a little bit on the edge of the spotlight. At this point (especially with that fiscal year beginning in just over three weeks), the anticipated end result will be some form of catch-all, or "omnibus" spending measure for the year, as has been the case in almost every recent federal fiscal year's appropriations. However, the race is on in both the House and Senate appropriations committees to move as far and fast as they can on next year's appropriations, as their work, no matter how far along it's progressed, will inform the final product on FY 2012 spending.

With respect to those FY 2012 appropriations most directly affecting public transportation and its partners in coordination, here's this week's status report, as reported in the Library of Congress' "Thomas" web site:

• Transportation-HUD: House appropriations subcommittee markup set for Sept 8; no Senate action
• Labor-HHS-Education: possible House appropriations subcommittee consideration Sept 9; no Senate action
• Military Construction-VA: H.R. 2055 passed House June 14, passed Senate July 20, awaiting House-Senate conference or negotiation
• Agriculture: H.R. 2112 passed House June 16; Senate Appropriations full committee markup set for Sept 7
• Homeland Security: H.R. 2017 passed House June 2; Senate Appropriations full committee markup set for Sept 7
• Commerce-Justice-Science: H.R. 2596 reported out of House Appropriations committee July 13; no Senate action
• Interior-Environment: H.R. 2584 reported out of House Appropriations committee July 13; no Senate action

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Mobility Management, Transportation can be funded through HUD Family Self-Sufficiency Grants

Recently, the US Dept of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced the availability of nearly $110 million to provide support for individuals to get better connected with education, job training and supportive services. This is being done through a set of family self-sufficiency grant announcements. While there may be some creative ways in which these funds can be used for the actual provision of transit services for some residents of HUD-related housing (I can imagine instances of purchasing transit passes or vouchers, for example), the primary transportation connection for these HUD grants would be for what transportation folks would call 'mobility management,' such as the hiring or retention of caseworkers and service coordinators who can link people with the appropriate organizations and providers of a number of services, specifically including transportation.

Specifically, HUD has released notices of funding availability, inviting grant applications for three programs: (a) Public and Indian Housing Family Self-Sufficiency, (b) Housing Choice Voucher Family Self-Sufficiency, and (c) Resident Opportunities and Self-Sufficiency. Public housing authorities are the only eligible applicants for most of these funds, although some other community-based housing-related organizations may be eligible to apply for the resident opportunities and self sufficiency grants.

Therefore, the best course of action for interested public transportation and mobility management stakeholders to pursue is to engage in a dialogue with local public housing authorities, and see about striking up partnerships or relationships that would fit the parameters of one or more of these funding opportunities.

• Housing Choice Voucher Family Self-Sufficiency grant applications are due to HUD by June 8, 2011.
• Public and Indian Housing Family Self-Sufficiency grant applications are due to HUD by June 29, 2011.
• Resident Opportunities and Self Sufficiency Service Coordinator grant applications are due to HUD by July 13, 2011.

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Coordination of Transportation Services Gets GAO Spotlight

Most of the time, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a quiet watchdog, helping Congress examine the effectiveness of federal programs and activities, and working hard to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse. This past week, though, GAO sailed out into the media limelight, with an attention-getting government-wide examination of duplication in federal government programs.

This 345-page report, entitled Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue, received coverage from all corners of the media spectrum, including National Public Radio, the Washington Post, Fox News Channel and many other news outlets. Following the report's publication, the Comptroller General, Gene Dodaro, gave testimony on the GAO findings at a March 3, 2011, hearing convened by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

As we state on the front page of the National Resource Center for Human Service Transportation Coordination's (NRC) web site, www.NRCtransportation.org, coordination between transportation and human services is "good practice, good policy." That same thinking permeates this GAO report. In numerous points throughout the report, GAO highlights opportunities for the federal government and its programs to function more effectively through several aspects of streamlining and interagency or intergovernmental coordination. Here are just a few highlights that pertain to coordination between transportation and human services:


1. Citing a 2009 NRC report, GAO recommends that the eleven federal departments and agencies comprising the interagency Coordinating Council on Access and Mobility (CCAM) "should identify and assess their transportation programs and related expenditures and work with other departments to identify potential opportunities for additional coordination such as the use of one-call centers, transportation brokerages, or shared resources, among other options.... [and] should develop the means for collecting and sharing this information by establishing agency roles and responsibilities and developing a strategy to reinforce cooperation."

2. In another recommendation regarding coordination between transportation and human services, GAO states "Federal departments also have more work to do in developing and disseminating policies and grantee guidance for coordinating transportation services. This is important because state and local grantees typically look to their administrating departments for guidance on issues such as coordination."


3. Picking up a point that has been raised by the NRC in 2009, and in a special CCAM Report to the President in 2005, GAO observes that "progress has been made in coordination efforts, particularly at the state and local level. However, to assure that coordination benefits are realized, Congress may want to consider requiring key programs to participate in coordinated planning."

The above points, and related comments, such as GAO's current estimation that there may be 80 federal programs whose funds may be used in some way to provide transportation services to "transportation disadvantaged" populations, but for which there continue to be no reliable data on the precise number of such programs, nor the nature or extent of how these programs' expenses are used on transportation, all can be found on pages numbered 134 through 139 of the GAO report (if reading on line, note that these are the 139th through 144th pages of text in the PDF version of the document).

Some other GAO findings and recommendations that pertain to the coordination of transportation and human services include:

• Using the overdue reauthorization of SAFETEA-LU as a vehicle to overcome the growing fragmentation of federal surface transportation programs. GAO had looked at one small part of this fragmentation in 2009, recommending that "consolidating the application processes for three federal transit programs that provide funding for transportation-disadvantaged populations [i.e., the FTA Job Access, New Freedom, and Section 5310 programs] could reduce the administrative burden for states and transit agencies applying for these funds."
• Improving collaboration among the economic development programs administered by USDA, HUD, the Small Business Administration, and the Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration.
• Promoting streamlining, instead of duplication, among the various safety and security systems for transit and trucking that have been established by the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Transit Administration, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
• Reducing the programmatic inconsistencies between USDA's various food and nutrition programs.
• Taking steps to better coordinate the many programs that provide services and assistance to homeless persons.
• Co-locating federally funded job training programs and consolidating their administrative structures.
• Transforming the New Markets Tax Credit into a federal grant-making program.
• Helping states do more to "implement and oversee processes to prevent, identify, and recover improper payments and to reduce the billions of dollars that are annually lost to improper Medicaid payments."

Judging from the reception of this report on Capitol Hill and across the news media, it would appear that there is much interest in finding ways to promote improved coordination of services. To borrow a phrase from the Roosevelt administration, "We Do Our Part" at the National Resource Center to make the coordination between public transportation and human services an effective reality.
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No need to hold your breath....at least not this week

Many people in the nation's public transit community were becoming increasingly worried this past week, when speculation increased by the minute that there would be a lapse in federal appropriations, and at the same time, the legislative authority for highway and transit programs under SAFETEA-LU also would lapse. With regard to federal spending, every government agency was readying its "contingency plans," and preparing the messages to communicate to grantees and customers. Within the US Department of Transportation (DOT), extra effort was being paid to what could or could not be done if there were to be a lapse in authorizations.

However, the cause for concern has passed, if only for the moment.

A short-term continuing resolution has been signed into law that keeps federal funds on tap for two more weeks, through March 18, 2011. As was widely reported in the news media, this stopgap measure included several billion dollars of budget cuts, but none of those cuts, not even those identified within the DOT, appear likely to have any effect on transit programs or grantees. In general, the spending cuts under this continuing resolution represent programs that were carried over from last year's appropriations, but which neither President Obama nor Congress had any intention of funding this year in the first place.

Today, President Obama is expected to sign another bill into law: the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2011. This bill basically extends SAFETEA-LU through the end of the current fiscal year. This takes a lot of the pressure off both Congress and the DOT, in the short term, but pressures to renew our nation's federal highway and transit programs remain very real and very urgent.

While worries over SAEFTEA-LU authorizations may have eased for now, the issue of federal appropriations continues to loom large. Expect more last-minute legislative drama in two weeks' time.
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FTA Sets Its Position on "Buy America" Waivers

Many of the community-based programs that partner with Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grantees to provide coordinated transportation services use small (by transit standards) vehicles, often purchased "off-the-lot" from dealers. Quite a few of the minivans, vans, and other small transit vehicles are produced, at least in part, in Canada, Mexico, or overseas. When FTA funds are involved, it becomes important to assure compliance with FTA's specific and unique "Buy America" requirements. Indeed, a few communities have turned to non-FTA sources, such as the HUD Community Development Block Grant program, for vehicle purchases at least in part because the process of assuring Buy America compliance becomes a challenging obstacle.

This week, FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff put into writing a statement of principles that had been in force ever since states and transit agencies began purchasing vehicles with "stimulus" funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but which FTA applies to all vehicle acquisitions involving FTA grant funds, regardless of programs.

In this February 16, 2011, "Dear Colleague" letter, Mr Rogoff explicitly states, "FTA will not consider any requests for a public interest waiver of FTA’s Buy America regulation." In this same letter, he goes on to say "FTA has raised the bar for all Buy America waiver requests.  All requests will be scrutinized.  Most requests will result in FTA offering technical assistance to develop a solution that will not necessitate a waiver.  Please be cautious about leading your projects down a path where a Buy America waiver will be needed, as it is unlikely to be granted."

Given the tenor of this letter, anyone concerned with the Buy America provisions that apply to capital purchases involving FTA funding should pay close attention to the regulations and related information at FTA's "Buy America" web page.
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President Obama Sends FY 2012 Budget Request to Congress

Even when submitted on Valentine's Day, the annual budget request from the White House is far from a fait accompli. However, these documents, chock-full of details and ideas, do help shape the basis by which the annual appropriations process begins to unfold. That said, there are many interesting ideas wrapped up in this latest budget request, and it will be even more interesting to see which of these gain traction in the halls of Congress.

Since the budget documents (which all are posted on-line at the Office of Management and Budget's website) are about annual spending, here's a quick rundown of what is being discussed that may be of greatest relevance to the federal investment in public transit and its most closely linked medical, workforce and social services programs.

Federal Transit formula grants
President Obama and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood are requesting total spending for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) of $22.4 billion in FY 2012. This is more than double the funds appropriated to FTA in FY 2010 and 2011. Within the formula-based transit grant programs, the FTA budget request would increase "Section 5307" urban transit grants to $6.2 billion and "Section 5311" rural transit grants to $766 million. Although the details would have to be contained within a SAFETEA-LU reauthorization, the Administration's budget request calls for consolidating the current "Section 5310" funding for elderly and disabled persons' transit, "New Freedom" funding t, and "Job Access and Reverse Commute" (JARC) funding under a $405 million "Consolidated Specialized Transportation" grant program. In addition, there is a DOT-wide initiative requested under this budget proposal for $50 billion of "Up-Front Investments," of which at least $3 billion is sought for additional funding of urban and rural transit projects at a 100 percent federal share, plus $7.5 billion for 100 percent federally funded fixed-guideway modernization projects, and $1.0 billion for "New Starts," above those covered in the existing Section 5309 program. Another notable feature is the Administration's request that there be a mechanism by which urban transit funding in areas experiencing unemployment above a certain threshold would be able to be used to cover a portion of those grantees' operating costs.

Medicaid
Federal payments for Medicaid are a form of mandatory spending that is outside the annual appropriations process. In the budget request, it is estimated that federal spending on Medicaid will be $270.7 billion in FY 2012.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
Federal payments to states for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) are a form of mandatory spending that is outside the annual appropriations process. TANF spending is fixed by law at $16.4 billion per year.

Workforce Investment Act programs
Employment and training grants under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), along with funding for closely related federal job training programs, are slated for a reduction of approximately 12 percent, to $3.5 billion under the President's budget request. The bulk of that funding would continue to be directed to workforce development activities for dislocated workers ($1.3 billion), youth ($965 million) and job-seeking adults ($792 million).

Older Americans Act programs
The portion of Older Americans Act funding that is directed to supportive services and senior centers, which historically has been a significant partner to many urban and rural transit arrangements, is slated for a 13 percent increase under the President's budget request, to a level of $468 million. Elsewhere in the Administration's request is an interesting note, that President Obama is seeking to shift management of the Senior Community Service Employment Program away from the Department of Labor and into the Administration on Aging.

Community Development Block Grants
The Department of Housing and Urban Development's Community Development Block Grant program would receive a 20 percent cut under the President's budget request, to $3.7 billion.

Community Services Block Grants
Making good on a commitment he made in his most recent State of the Union speech, President Obama is requesting a 50 percent reduction in funding for Community Services Block Grant activities, to $350 million.

Vocational Rehabilitation
Grants from the Department of Education to state vocational rehabilitation agencies are slated for very slight growth, to $3.1 billion in FY 2012 under the President's budget request.

Qualified Transportation Fringe Benefits and Other Tax Credits
Although tax expenditures are not a part of the annual appropriations process, the President's budget documents are the one place where the estimated values of these "tax breaks" all are noted in one place, typically without much analysis or commentary. As anyone who follows these items can suspect, the leading tax expenditures continue to be the tax deductions for employer-provided health care (estimated at $173.8 billion in FY 2011) and itemized deductions for mortgage interest on personal residences (estimated at $88.7 billion in FY 2011). Of greater interest to public transportation and its partners are the impacts of the Qualified Transportation Fringe Benefit for transit and vanpooling (estimated at $510 million in FY 2011) and, for a much smaller segment of the population, the claimed value of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (estimated at $1.0 billion in FY 2011). Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, some transportation projects were able to be financed with Build America Bonds; although that program has since terminated, the tax expenses associated with current Build America Bonds are estimated at $2.6 billion in FY 2011. Credits claimed for activities financed through New Markets Tax Credits are estimated at $800 million in FY 2011.
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Transit Money Made Available

In this climate of SAFETEA-LU extensions and short-term continuing resolutions, the Federal Transit Adminsitration (FTA) is rather constrained in its ability to allocate transit funds to states and communities. Every so often, the statutory window opens, and some funds are made available.

On February 8, 2011, FTA published a notice allocating formula-based transit funds for the first 5/12 of the current federal fiscal year. This notice provides partial apportionments and allocations for: statewide and metropolitan transit planning (Sections 5303 and 5304), urbanized area transit grants (Section 5307), fixed-guideway modernization (an element of Section 5309), elderly persons and individuals with disabilities transit capital (Section 5310), rural transit grants (Section 5311), job access and reverse commute grants (Section 5316), and new freedom transit grants (Section 5317).

For details, see the notice on FTA's website at http://www.fta.dot.gov/funding/apportionments/grants_financing_12353.html. NOTE: although this notice was "officially" published in the February 8, 2011, Federal Register, that notice contains formatting errors that arose during the Federal Register publishing process; please rely on FTA's website, and not the as-published Federal Register, for the most accurate information (besides, the FTA page will include any updates and additional allocations as those become available).
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