Democrats Ask Kerry, Lieberman to Add Transportation Funding to Climate Bill

WASHINGTON — A group of Senate Democrats sent a letter yesterday to Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., urging them to add billions of dollars for transportation-related investments to the draft climate and energy bill the two recently unveiled.

“A number of strategies — including increased fuel efficiency, decreased carbon content of fuel, and greater transportation options — are necessary to accomplish meaningful reductions” in carbon emissions, according to the letter sent by Democratic Senators Thomas Carper of Delaware, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

The letter cited U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that an additional $30 billion per year is needed just to maintain highways, bridges, and transit systems. Most of the federal funding that currently supports those systems comes from general-fund appropriations, gasoline and diesel fuel taxes, as well as driving-related fees. Recent industry estimates of revenue necessary to sustain a six-year transportation bill fall in the $500 billion to $600 billion range.

“Improving our infrastructure to provide for the maximum economic benefit and job growth will require an additional investment of $75 billion per year,” the four senators wrote, though they did not call for a specific amount to be dedicated to transportation in the bill.

The draft American Power Act, introduced by Kerry and Lieberman last month, would direct states and metropolitan planning organizations to set and meet transportation emissions-reduction goals. To that end, the bill would provide up to $6.25 billion per year for transportation.

About $2 billion of that amount would be distributed in competitive, discretionary grants. The bill also would create a $3 billion tax-credit bond program for vehicles powered by natural gas, allow private-activity bond financing for advanced nuclear power facilities, and expand a nuclear loan guarantee program,

Some groups have argued that infrastructure should receive a higher share of the revenues the federal government would collect from the transportation sector under the bill’s provisions. They want those revenues to be shifted into the highway trust fund.

The bill’s proposal for emissions trading and greenhouse gas emissions caps would generate an estimated $19.5 billion of transportation-related revenues starting in 2013, according to groups that analyzed fuel consumption rates for gasoline and diesel fuel ­users.

Carper joined Transportation For America — a coalition of transportation, housing, business, environmental, public health, development, and other infrastructure-related organizations — on a teleconference call yesterday to argue for more transportation funds to be included in the Kerry-Lieberman proposal.

The bill would provide “nearly three times” the amount of funding for transportation than any previous climate bill has provided, said James Corless, director of Transportation For America.

“Even though the policy is wonderful and the money is three times [as large], it still isn’t enough,” he said. “Revenues generated from the transportation sector should be reinvested” in maintaining and building new infrastructure.

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