Subject: POLITICO's Morning Transportation, presented by the Air Line Pilots Association, International: FTA steps up its game on WMATA oversight — Senate appropriators skip ahead to THUD bill — Obama lambasts Congress on transportation dollars
From: Morning Transportation <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 May 2016 08:02:10 -0600

By Martine Powers | 05/09/2016 10:00 AM EDT

With help from Lauren Gardner, Jennifer Scholtes, Dana Rubinstein and Isaac Arnsdorf

FTA STEPS UP ITS GAME: The Federal Transit Administration is ordering WMATA to conduct immediate emergency training sessions and launch a slew of emergency preparedness programs after what it criticized as a "slow and inadequate" reaction to an explosion on the tracks last week. The move is a demonstration of administrative muscle for the agency that has been barraged with criticisms that it lacks the teeth to properly manage safety oversight for WMATA. The no-buts-about-it directive came the day after WMATA announced a long-term schedule of segmented shutdowns and targeted single-tracking on the troubled subway system that will cram three years' worth of maintenance work into one.

Pols pile on: Lawmakers in the region responded with approval for the maintenance schedule, arguing that the quicker WMATA officials can offer proof that the system is actively becoming safer, the better footing they will have to make the case that the system deserves more money from the federal government. "Only by showing results can we as a delegation step forward and advocate for a continued federal role in funding improvements to the system," Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner said in a joint statement. And President Barack Obama used the occasion as an opportunity to kvetch about infrastructure underfunding from Congress: "The D.C. Metro historically has been a great strength
 of this region," he said, when asked by a reporter about WMATA's issues, "but it is just one more example of the under-investments that have been made." (More on his comments below.)

Ripping off the Band-Aid: Expect to hear more from General Manager Paul Wiedefeld today, when he appears on WAMU 88.5's Kojo Nnamdi Show to talk about the shutdowns. More generally, his faster-is-better attitude reflects a shift from transportation and infrastructure administrators around the country toward quicker, cheaper approaches to conducting significant maintenance projects, rather than attempting to minimize impacts on commuters by dragging out the project timeline. It happened in Boston three years ago, when transportation officials close to completely shutter the major artery running through Callahan Tunnel and fix it up in three months, rather than try to do partial closures for
 18 months. And New York is considering a similar prospect now, as it mulls whether to completely close the L Train between Manhattan and Brooklyn for a year-and-a-half, or allow for partial service that provides one-fifth of current capacity for three years.

Get ready for 'shared pain,' draft plan says: The draft plan - which Wiedefeld is hoping to get approved in the next week - involves a detailed schedule of short-term shutdowns and periods of single-tracking that focus largely on the above-ground portions of the system that lie further from the center of D.C.; that strategy is meant to allow for staff to maximize time on nights and weekends to tackle maintenance on underground in the heart of the system. Wiedefeld also plans to curtail late-night service between midnight and 3 a.m. on weekends and to start maintenance at 8 p.m. on weeknights. "Under the plan," Lauren writes, "the agency will finish the installation of NTSB-recommended boots
 and seals on all third-rail cables by the end of the summer, while all underground boots will be retrofitted by the end of May."

On FTA-versus-FRA - it's a done deal, Norton says. After months of waffling on the issue, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton came out with a definitive statement on Friday that she is supporting the decision to keep the Federal Transit Administration as the agency appointed to oversee safety improvements on the system - despite vehement opposition raised by the National Transportation Safety Board raised last week. "Congress, through MAP-21 and the FAST Act, authorized FTA to assume direct safety oversight of a transit system if the State Safety Oversight Agency is unable to do so," Norton wrote. "Thus, FTA has a mandate from Congress, and as a practical matter is the only actor capable of
 quickly taking on safety oversight of WMATA." She also called for regional officials to make haste in drafting legislation that would establish an independent safety oversight authority, and urged Congress to stand ready to pass such a law in the fall.

IT'S MONDAY: Good morning and thanks for tuning into POLITICO's Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on all things trains, planes, automobiles and ports.

But seriously. Secretary Foxx needs to do the #RunningManChallenge. Co-sign: [email-masked] or @martinepowers.

"Engine, Engine, Number Nine/On the New York transit line/If my train goes off the track/Pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up!"

THIS WEEK:

Tuesday: The National Transportation Safety Board holds a forum on "Pedestrian Safety" to discuss the risks posed to pedestrians by highway travel.

Wednesday: The National Defense Industrial Association holds its 2016 Tactical Wheeled Vehicles Conference. New America and Future Tense hold a discussion on "Why Does it Still Take Five Hours to Fly Cross-Country?" The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority holds its Dulles Matters II Summit, on "the importance of Dulles International to the economy of the National Capital Region." And the Coalition for America's Gateways & Trade Corridors holds its annual Good Movement reception, hosted by the Port of Los Angeles.

Thursday: The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee holds a hearing on "Controlling the Rising Cost of Federal Responses to Disaster." The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration holds a listening session to solicit information on the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea in the highway and rail transportation industry. Later in the day, the agency holds a meeting on the development of a unified carrier registration plan and agreement." Pilots with United and ALPA gather outside of the White House to express concerns about how final DOTs approval of NAI's permit would have devastating effects on careers, the industry and future.

Friday: The Bipartisan Policy Center holds a discussion on "Modernizing Our Air Traffic Control System: What's the Holdup?" with Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, and Charles Barclay, former president and CEO of the American Associations of Airport Executives.

SKIP TO THE FRONT OF THE LINE: It seems likely that the Senate will abandon its work on the Energy & Water appropriations bill, deeming the whole Iranian-heavy-water kerfuffle a wash (at least for now) and moving on to a combo package of the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs appropriations bills this week, according to POLITICO's approps aces Ben Weyl and Matthew Nussbaum.

** A message from the Air Line Pilots Association, International: By proposing to grant Norwegian Air International (NAI) a foreign carrier permit, the Obama Administration is failing to enforce our Open Skies agreement with the European Union, thereby harming tens of thousands of U.S. workers. The Department of Transportation should stand up for U.S. workers and immediately deny NAI's request. http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cf3f9702b6515cea988c5ada50fd18723edd2b259629d9da05 **

OBAMA LAMBASTS GOP ON TRANSPO $$: Building on his WMATA comments, President Obama pulled no punches on Friday, taking Republicans to the woodshed and accusing the GOP of actually standing in the way of goodhearted attempts by his administration to fix America's crumbling infrastructure. From the Commander in Chief: "We've got bridges, we've got roads, we have ports, we have airports, we have water mains and pipes as we saw in Flint, that suffer from neglect. ... And the reason we've been neglecting them is not because we don't know how to fix them," Obama told reporters during a Friday afternoon press conference.

So who's to blame? "The problem we have is that the Republican Congress has been resistant to really taking on this problem in a serious way. And the reason is because of an ideology that says government spending is necessarily bad," Obama continued.

How quickly we forget: But while Obama was sure to pat himself on the back for White House work done to advance infrastructure funding, the president seems to have a limited memory. For years, the administration didn't even put forth a highway and transit proposal of its own - much to the dismay of lawmakers - much less concrete funding ideas for digging the Highway Trust Fund out of its hole. Remember the White House plan to fund infrastructure using overseas war savings, a smoke-and-mirrors accounting gimmick with no ties to transportation?

We're not done yet: And that doesn't even touch on the fact that the White House shut down attempts by the late Rep. Jim Oberstar, then House Transportation Chairman, to move a multi-year highway and transit bill in 2009 and 2010, when Democrats controlled both chambers, because lawmakers, and the White House, didn't want to take a vote on the gas tax.

"Probably one of the most difficult meetings that I had ... is the meeting I had with Chairman Oberstar when I told him that it was not going to be possible for Obama and the administration to support an increase in the gas tax," former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told POLITICO last year. As loyal readers know, the White House inaction helped set the stage for years of stop-and-go extensions until Congress passed a two-year highway and transit bill in 2012.

RAIL WARS: It's the latest salvo in the fight between Amtrak and freight railroads on an on-time performance metric and unfettered access to tracks: The Association of American Railroads is demanding that the STB quit its efforts to hammer out a new definition of "on-time" for Amtrak and dismiss Amtrak's request for an investigation into late arrivals. If the STB sides with Amtrak, the freight railroads could face more onerous mandates ensuring they pull over and allow Amtrak trains carrying passengers to zoom by uninhibited.

In a letter to the STB, AAR's lawyers pointed out a recent U.S. Court of Appeals decision and argued that the case "supports AAR's argument that Congress granted Amtrak and the FRA - not the Board - the power to define 'on-time performance' for purposes of triggering an investigation. The AAR added that the STB should terminate rulemaking on on-time performance and dismiss Amtrak's requests for investigations into the factors leading to late arrivals. Two days later, Amtrak shot back with its own later, arguing that the cited court decision makes it clear that STB still has clear legal grounding to start up an investigation. Lauren's got all the juicy details on the battle of words between
 these railroads here.

'BORROWED TIME' FOR GATEWAY TUNNEL PROJECT, FOXX SAYS: Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx was on cheerleading duty in midtown Manhattan on Friday for the $20 billion Gateway project that would replace a set of century-old Amtrak tubes that currently carry 160,000 passengers per day, most of them on New Jersey Transit. "We are light years ahead today versus a year ago," Foxx said Friday, speaking at the annual assembly hosted by the Regional Plan Association.

"But we still have many light years ahead of us." He reiterated Amtrak's forecast that the tubes will become so decrepit in coming years they will need to be shut down for safety. "That does not inspire confidence," Foxx said. "And that could be 15 years from now, it could be 15 months from now, it could be 15 weeks from now, it could be 15 minutes from now."

ABANDON SHIP: The International Seafarers Ministry is calling on the Senate to abandon a provision included in the Senate Commerce Committee's Maritime Administration reauthorization bill that would make it more difficult for foreign workers on foreign-owned cruise ships to sue their employers in U.S. courts. "It would harm the overworked and often abused international seafarers," the Miami-based organization wrote in a letter to Sen. Bill Nelson. "The amendment would also result in a loss of U.S. seafarer jobs. Ship owners will not hire U.S. seafarers if they can avoid their U.S. legal obligations by hiring only international seafarers."

NEW FIRM: Scott Brenner and Kyle Mulhall, who recently left Gephardt Government Affairs, have formed Rosemont Strategies. At Gephardt, they focused on the transportation sector, with clients such as Los Angeles International Airport and the Port of Oakland, and in the tech sector with Google and McAfee. They're bringing over clients including New York Air Brake, PODS and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and Los Angeles World Airports. Since opening April 1 they signed up the American Trucking Associations.

THE AUTOBAHN (SPEED READ):

- Behind the scenes of ballooning costs: How did Boston's Green Line extension project go so wildly off the rails? The Boston Globe.

- "Honda to Recall 20 Million Takata Air Bag Parts, Nikkei Reports." Bloomberg.

- "Fiat Chrysler CEO Seeks to Strengthen Ties With Google." The Wall Street Journal.

- "Planned Metro disruptions won't bring commute to a halt." The Washington Post.

- "Uber, Lyft Spend Big, Lose Big in Texas Vote on Driver Fingerprinting." Reuters.

- "This Startup Wants to Use Drones to Drop Blood, Not Bombs." Wired.

THE COUNTDOWN: DOT appropriations run out in 145 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 67 days. The 2016 presidential election is in 182 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 1,607 days.

** A message from the Air Line Pilots Association, International: The Department of Transportation's (DOT) order proposing to approve Norwegian Air International's (NAI) request ignores both the terms of our the Open Skies agreement and the will of Congress. NAI's operation as a "flag-of-convenience" carrier in Ireland would allow the airline to skirt Norway's employment laws, give NAI an unfair economic edge, and put tens of thousands of U.S. aviation jobs at risk. 

DOT's decision is at odds with the letter, spirit, and intent of the U.S.-EU Air Transport Agreement and is opposed by U.S. and EU labor unions, airlines and others. More than 200 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have urged Secretary Foxx to enforce the U.S.-EU agreement and deny the NAI application.

The Obama Administration needs to stand up for fair competition and U.S. jobs and deny NAI a foreign carrier permit. Learn more: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=92f33f4e5f8855cf3f9702b6515cea988c5ada50fd18723edd2b259629d9da05 **

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