issue: Transportation & Infrastructure

Not Just Another Stimulus: Obama Rolls Out Solid Blueprint for Infrastructure Bank

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In his speech in Milwaukee yesterday, President Obama laid out a proposal for smart, responsible investment in economic growth by addressing the urgent need to improve our nation’s infrastructure.  Compared to other economic measures that have been put on the table, economists tell us that infrastructure financing will generate the most bang for our buck, and businesses tell us it will create jobs where we need them now and at the same time produce long-lasting benefits for our economy.  Under normal circumstances, a national infrastructure bank is a great idea. In the current economic environment, it’s a necessity.

The President is sending a strong message this week that his administration’s thinking has moved beyond another round of scattershot stimulus toward a real plan for sustainable growth.  Today’s speech suggests that the mantra for spending has changed from an obsession with injecting federal spending to thinking rationally about actually investing it.  That’s welcome news, and it’s not a moment too soon.

PPI has been hard at work with members of Congress, industry experts, and economists to identify swift and effective steps for fixing our infrastructure problems and putting the country on a better path to economic growth.  We have supported legislation to create a national infrastructure bank, introduced by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who has taken the lead and been the real champion on this issue in Congress.  She will discuss the bill at PPI’s infrastructure policy event on October 1, in conjunction with the annual CG/LA Infrastructure North American Leadership Forum in Washington, DC.

Rep. DeLauro and other elected officials will join Tom Friedman, Leo Hindery, economist Ev Ehrlich, and top business and labor leaders to discuss the best ways to move forward on infrastructure now.  The conference will also examine CG/LA’s list of the top 100 infrastructure projects that represent the most important and urgent priorities for investment.

At a time when deficits are high and every dollar counts, leveraged infrastructure financing is one of the smartest things the federal government can do for the economy.  When compared to other forms of spending and tax cuts, including the costs for the hotly-debated upper end of the Bush tax cuts, infrastructure spending has a stronger impact on the economy. In fact, it blows most other options out of the water.  Even conservatives who argue against further spending right now would agree that if we’re going to spend, this is a much better use of taxpayer dollars than other less productive programs that simply throw money at short-term problems.

The idea behind the infrastructure bank and the new generation of transportation funding programs is to use public financing as seed money to attract private investment, which adds valuable leverage to every taxpayer dollar.  This potent combination of funding will create jobs that can be counted on for years in the hard-hit construction sector and will result in long-term structural benefits for every sector of our economy, including increased productivity and more efficient transportation for our goods and services.

Make no mistake: the proposals the president spoke about today are not the old-school pork projects that many of us think of when we hear anyone in Washington talk about infrastructure.  Creating an infrastructure bank is not about allocating more money for Congress to build “bridges to nowhere.” Instead, it would help bridge the gap that exists between private-sector capital and the financing needs for modernizing the physical backbone of our economy.  By coordinating and prioritizing public needs and relying in part on the market for investment decisions, we can move private capital off the sidelines and into projects that are strategically important for entire regions and for the nation as a whole, not just for one congressman with the right committee assignment.

President Obama and Rep. DeLauro have their work cut out for them in pushing the proposal for an infrastructure bank and smarter transportation investment through Congress, especially in such a charged political atmosphere.  But the President has picked the right fight at least: the fact is that we badly need to upgrade our infrastructure, and it’s an investment that will create steady job growth and generates long-term value for our country.  It will not be an easy fight, but it’s one worth fighting, and President Obama should be commended for taking it up.

Photo credit: Feuilu’s Photostream

A Conservative Case for Public Transit

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Over at the American Conservative Magazine, William S. Lind makes a powerful conservative case for renewed investment in public transit: “For cities, conservatives’ banner should be read, ‘Bring Back the Streetcars!’”

A couple of points are worth highlighting:

1)    The current car-dependent culture we have now is not a free market outcome. Lind notes that: “it is the produce of almost a century of government intervention in the transportation market.” Highways, according to Lind, only “cover 58 percent of their costs from user fees, including the gasoline tax.”

2)    Public transit is a real driver of economic development or redevelopment. (Lind cites Portland, OR and Kenosha, WI as cities that got a real boost from putting in a streetcar line)

3)    Public transit helps advance energy independence.

4)    And if the first conservative political virtue is prudence, as Russell Kirk advised, “there is nothing prudent about leaving most people immobile should events beyond the pale cut off our oil supply, as happened in 1973 and 1979)

Lind’s piece is one of several in a symposium on transit over at the American Conservative. And in fact, “The American Conservative’s nonprofit parent, The American Ideas Institute, will launch a new center on transportation made possible by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The center will work to showcase conservative arguments for a balanced transportation system in which rail and roads complement one another.”

Lind has also written a book with conservative stalwart Paul Weyrich on this subject: Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation.

This suggests real promise on a left-right consensus on the need for meaningful investments in public transit. Progressives ought to pay attention.

Photo credit: Oran Virincy’s photostream

China’s Switch from Importer to Exporter of Fast Trains Holds Lessons for U.S.

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In the world of high-speed rail, imitation can be an appealing form of flattery. While the Obama administration is literally tying the railway supply industry in knots by insisting on trainsets built solely of U.S. content, China opened its arms to foreign train manufacturers during the early stages of its high-speed rail program.

Now within the space of six years, China has become the fastest-growing exporter of rail equipment in the world. On Wednesday, Argentina signed a $12 billion deal to purchase locomotives, cars and infrastructure from state-owned Chinese railways. This triumph follows the country’s success in exporting its technology to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Venezuela.

China’s ability to create a booming rail sector is a case study of how to leapfrog over established builders and stimulate domestic employment at the same time.

In 2004, China sealed a contract with a consortium led by Kawasaki Heavy Industries to build “bullet trains.” Local equipment makers soon mastered the know-how for their manufacture and licensed other design features from companies in Canada, France, Germany and Sweden.

Today, China operates the world’s fastest trains, with about 15 percent of the parts coming from overseas.

Cutting a Deal in California

On the global stage, China was a non-factor in high-speed-rail (HSR) manufacturing until about 20 months ago when it started bidding on projects overseas. With its cheap cost basis, China quickly made inroads against Siemens of Germany and Alstom of France – together with its former partner, Kawasaki, which reportedly could not imagine that the catch-up would be so fast.

The Chinese government recently signed a preliminary agreement to cooperate with California to help finance and build a HSR line between San Diego and Sacramento. China’s rail ministry has a framework agreement to license its technology to General Electric.

GE describes the agreement as requiring at least 80 percent of the components to come from American suppliers and final assembly in the U.S. GE itself would supply 200-mph electric locomotives using technology licensed from China.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to lead a trade mission to Beijing in September to discuss China’s offer.

Insisting on All-American Content

The example of China provides an alternative model to the “do-it-yourself” approach of the Obama administration. Propelled by a desire to create jobs quickly, the administration says it will only fund rail projects where all manufactured parts – plus the underlining iron and steel – are produced in the U.S.

The 100-percent American rule was contained in Congressional legislation that authorized the spending of $8 billion in stimulus funds for HSR. The administration has told suppliers that it does not plan to use the law’s waiver to exempt some components, even though subway and light-rail trainsets funded with federal money may use up to 30 percent non-U.S. content.

America’s supremacy in railway carbuilding has long past. The last builder, Pullman-Standard Co., went out of business 25 years ago. A century before, George Pullman built the largest passenger railcar business in the world through his innovative Pullman sleeping car.

Without any current base to produce such equipment domestically, attempts to build a homegrown business are fraught with problems, according to many experts.

Last month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted that it could take as many as nine years to build high-speed trainsets domestically. This included up to 21 months for testing the equipment and 42 months for production.

Easing Safety Rules

Complicating the situation are rules established by the Federal Railroad Administration that bar foreign trainsets on American rails because they do not meet the agency’s safety standards.

FRA requires massive amounts of steel in passenger cars so they can withstand a crash with a freight train on shared track. Foreign standards focus more on crash avoidance rather than crash survival, the GAO pointed out, making for lighter trains that nevertheless have stellar safety records.

The agency has shown some relaxation of its heavy-metal mindset by allowing California to operate European-style trains on a dedicated passenger line being planned between San Francisco and San Jose.

Opening the door to foreign suppliers of cars and locomotives, at least until American companies can digest the technology required for their manufacture, could speed up rail service and potentially re-position the U.S. in markets once ruled by George Pullman.

Photo credit: jiadoldol

The State of U.S. Infrastructure: A Snapshot

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

We all want the infrastructure market to pick up dramatically and generate jobs, build productivity, and create competitiveness. But there is a yawning gap between public expressions of optimism and what infrastructure executives have been telling me about the state of their business. We continue to hear good news about the infrastructure industry in the media and from the administration, yet head counts at infrastructure firms are still down by as much as 25 percent, and executives say that the U.S. market is still essentially flat.

To get a granular picture of the state of infrastructure, my firm, CG/LA Infrastructure, last week sent out a survey of about 11,000 infrastructure executives and professionals throughout the U.S. and in all sectors of the industry. While only a fraction of the responses have come in so far, I’d like to share some preliminary results, which affirm the pessimistic mood that I’ve picked up in conversations. Here’s a snapshot of the state of U.S. infrastructure through the eyes of the men and women running our top firms:

1.) What is your current perception of the U.S. infrastructure market? Fifty-one percent of executives who have responded so far say that the market is “getting worse,” while 33 percent said that it is essentially flat and 15 percent said that it is improving.

The grim results may seem surprising, but it makes sense when you think about it. Most states have not recovered from last year’s cataclysm and continue to cut their budgets across the board. Considering that 70 percent of infrastructure spending is the responsibility of states and municipalities, it would be a surprise if infrastructure spending didn’t go down.

2. In your day-to-day infrastructure work, what are the most problematic issues in terms of improving project development speed? The U.S. needs to dramatically increase investments in infrastructure. Our survey question tried to get at the barriers to that kind of increased investment, and the current problems for restarting the market.

In our menu of options — respondents were allowed to choose as many as they wished from a list of factors — fifty-four percent of infrastructure executives mentioned “financing” as a problem. Meanwhile, 30 percent highlighted weak public sector capacity. This is significant. If we are going to invest in infrastructure, then we need a highly capable public sector.

Additionally 30 percent of executives also highlighted permitting issues as a barrier. Surprisingly, environmental issues, normally the biggest ‘problem’ on any industry survey, ranked fourth, highlighted by only 24 percent of executives.

Clearly the overriding issue is financing. How is that going to be addressed, and who will benefit? These are questions for another survey, and deserve a lot more attention than they are getting – particularly given the preponderant role of state and municipal budgets, and the dramatic weakness in those budgets. And lurking behind these concerns is a question few people are asking: What has become of the Obama administration’s initial National Infrastructure Bank proposal?

3. High-speed rail (HSR) is a signature initiative of the Obama administration. How do you rate this proposal in terms of current progress, and future potential, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being excellent and 1 being poor? Another striking result: 53 percent of respondents clustered their answers in the 1-3 range (97 percent scored the high-speed rail program “7” or below). The results reflect my experience with industry, where the initial excitement about the program has rapidly given way to doubt and incredulity.

This question allowed for comments, and those comments clustered into two groups: justifications for their scores, and constructive comments on what is wrong with the program. Under the first category, one commenter noted that there were “serious issues…of whether the funding provided will be sufficient to implement a meaningful program and whether the funding will be concentrated on the most promising HSR opportunities.” Another, more critical respondent wrote, “I have not seen any significant developments since the topic was broached.”

On the constructive side: “Existing rail corridors that host HSR should be exempt from most of the overly burdensome environmental laws. This is unnecessary and needless bureaucracy and is slowing everybody waaaaaay down.” Another comment noted that the program “needs a long term funding source; it will not survive as a jobs program.” Perhaps the most critical comment, in terms of strategy, was the following: “There are a few corridors where high speed rail makes a lot of sense; the Northeast corridor in particular. However, there is no national consensus on its utility in other parts of the country.” Without consensus, at a time of tremendous austerity, it is indeed difficult to see this “man on the moon” initiative moving forward. Note that nothing has been spent from the original authorization of $8 billion.

4. In infrastructure, where are the greatest [geographic] opportunities for your firm over the next 12 months? The answers to this question were surprising and underscore that the U.S. infrastructure industry is focused on the home market – and at the same time, does not see much future for itself in that market. Overall, 42 percent of executives surveyed see their greatest opportunities in the U.S., a market that they qualify as depressed. After the U.S. market, 32 percent of respondents see the greatest opportunities in Latin America (a region with four percent of global GDP), followed by North America (the U.S., Canada and Mexico), with 29 percent. Europe and the Middle East were each ranked at 20 percent, while non-China Asia was ranked below 10 percent. None of the infrastructure executives surveyed see opportunities in the closed Chinese market.

5. You expect your firm’s gross revenue in 2010 to _____. Only seven percent believe that their firm’s revenue will grow “significantly” in 2010, with 48 percent projecting moderate growth, and 32 percent stating that economic performance will remain flat. Two facts stand out: It is a cause for concern that 13 percent of executives see their firm’s performances actually declining and 80 percent see moderate or no revenue growth for their firms in 2010. Considering their point of comparison is 2009, the worst year for infrastructure in 80 years, this is dismal news.

All in all, the survey results speak for themselves. U.S. infrastructure executives don’t see much hope for revival this year – in fact, they see things getting worse. President Obama’s signature program, high-speed rail, does not receive anything like passing grades and it is increasingly not being taken seriously. The financing issue — not a surprise for anyone in the infrastructure business — is the number one problem facing the industry.

When I was starting in the infrastructure industry a friend would tell me, over and over, that “nothing is as stubborn as a fact.” Well, these are the facts. We should all take them seriously if we are going to create jobs, generate competitiveness and build opportunities. And it seems like the executives in this most public of industries have a pretty clear grasp of reality, and some good ideas about what should be done.

Photo credit: SP8254

Learning from Eurostar, Where London Meets Paris

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s a curious truth, though not yet widely understood, that we pay for high-speed rail whether we have it or not. We pay not only in congested highways, delayed air flights and disastrous oil spills, but also in a cumulative national slowdown that might be called arrested development.

This point is conveyed by a sharply reported article in the Financial Times that describes the business, cultural and even culinary changes in London 15 years after the start of high-speed Eurostar service to Paris.

Paris is 213 miles from London as the crow flies (about the same as Washington from New York), but “Paris seemed almost as exotic as Jakarta to Britons” before Eurostar service began in late 1994, FT’s Simon Kuper writes.

Nowadays, “what strikes you when going from Paris to London are the similarities.” Boasting a quarter of a million French inhabitants, London has become the sixth-largest French city, Kuper notes, while central Paris is “packed” with British nationals, some of them commuting multiple times a week to London on the train.

Transforming Travel

Eurostar is more than just a sleek conveyance for spoiled travelers, but a fundamental driver of progress. Back in the 19th century, people spoke of steam trains as “annihilating time and space.” Until railways became widely available, humans depended on animals for overland transportation and were limited by such factors as the feed required for a team of horses.

Each subsequent transportation revolution – the development of steamships in place of sailing vessels, the advent of flight with the Wright brothers, the mass production of motorcars, the arrival of jet planes replacing propeller craft – packed a wallop that reverberated across boundaries and social classes, tying people together in new and different ways.

 

The automobile made suburbia possible, while jets turned tourism into a global enterprise, to cite two examples. Equally fascinating is that the technology undergirding all of these revolutions was widely known and available to all nations, but only in western Europe and the U.S was the technology exploited in full.

That is until recently when the rebirth of rail travel – trains operating at several times the speed of highway traffic on dedicated rights of way – was pioneered in Japan, improved in Europe and now exploited to the max in China.

User-Friendly Networks

American policymakers, preoccupied by budget deficits and poll numbers, appear to be missing the larger picture, namely, that our standard of living is dependent on deploying the latest tools in transportation. In many corridors, high-speed rail is the best solution among traffic needs and sound environmental policy, and concentrating public funds upon it would represent a vast step forward in the use of transportation money.

One basic element ignored in Washington is the recognition that current rail traffic is far below what it would be had intercity rail service been remotely adequate under Amtrak. Some train journeys take longer today than they did when Herbert Hoover was president. It is impossible to predict how much dormant traffic is waiting to be tapped by a revitalized rail system.

The Eurostar trains that link downtown London with central Paris in just over two hours have not only enlivened both cities, according to Kuper, but created “user-friendly networks” that allow scientists and businessmen to exchange ideas quickly.

With other high-speed routes connecting France with Belgium, Germany with Austria, Switzerland with Italy, and, soon, France with Spain, the balance of scientific networks, which shifted to the U.S. after World War II, has swung back to Europe, according to his analysis.

In other words, efficient transportation is as important to a city’s or nation’s bloodstream as unfettered capital markets or sustained R&D. Here’s hoping the Obama administration, which supports high-speed rail, starts to make the case for expanded funding with the same clarity and celerity as the business-minded Financial Times.

Photo credit: Slices of Light

Report: High-Speed Rail Will Accelerate Economic Growth in Surveyed Cities

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

A report released yesterday concludes that high-speed trains would significantly boost economic activity and job creation over sped-up conventional Amtrak service. Released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the report examines how the introduction of different types of train service would impact business activity and jobs in two midsized cities – Albany, N.Y., and Orlando, Fla. – and a regional hub, Chicago.

Its findings clarify that the current debate over train speeds is not a dispute over “complementary means to the same end,” but a basic question of national aspirations that goes straight to the heart of 21st-century transportation and economic development.

Simply put, does the country want to pay less for an infrastructure that will make marginal improvements or does it want to spend more in order to multiply its gains?

Incremental vs. High Speed

Incremental improvements on existing railroad rights of way would cost about $15 million-$20 million a mile to build, whereas full high-speed rail (HSR) – with a dedicated right of way – might cost $40 million or more a mile.

Currently only Florida and California are pursuing the full HSR option. Some 15 states are developing projects that would result in what can best be called “higher speed rail” or “improving Amtrak on-time-performance rail.”

Joseph Szabo, head of the Federal Railroad Administration, has thrown his weight behind incremental improvements, saying in recent congressional testimony that trains that operate at 200 mph aren’t really necessary.

The calculations of the Boston consultancy, Economic Development Research Group, who prepared the new report, point to a different conclusion.

For Albany, the report looked at three scenarios in year 2035 – the introduction of marginally improved train speeds (79-90 mph), medium speeds (maximum of 110 mph) and full high speeds (maximum of 220 mph).

The report estimated that annual business sales would increase in the range of $358 to $534 million a year (in 2009 dollars) for incremental and medium-speed service, but would jump five-fold to $2.5 billion a year with full high-speed service.

The employment impact similarly varied, from 3,200 to 4,700 permanent jobs added for incremental and medium-speed service, compared to 21,360 jobs with HSR. Because the quality of jobs would increase with a more mobile workforce, roughly $1 billion a year would be added to Albany wages by 220-mph service.

Transformative Effect

The report attributed fast rail’s transformative powers on Albany to the fact that it would bring the region within the orbit of New York City. The two cities are separated by 140 miles, but Amtrak service currently takes 2 hours 35 minutes.

Reducing travel time to under an hour – possible when reaching a maximum 200 mph balanced with slower speeds in the urban districts – would spark a huge travel flow and make Albany a destination for commuters as well as tourists and business travelers. Connecting Albany to Buffalo, Boston and Montreal with fast trains would create additional opportunities.

This in turn would “support the growth of office activities and services that support state government, emerging nanotechnology, clean energy and computer chip-related industries,” the report concluded.

Growth projections for the three other cities studied:

  • In Chicago, 220-mph trains radiating to St. Louis, Detroit and St. Paul-Minneapolis would nearly triple yearly business activity to $6.1 billion and more than double employment to 42,200 new jobs compared to 110-mph service.
  • In Orlando, 220-mph trains from Tampa-St. Petersburg and Miami would bring $2.9 billion in yearly business sales, including 27,500 new jobs, compared to $2.1 billion in sales and 19,900 jobs from service operating at 168 mph.
  • In Los Angeles, 220-mph service to San Diego and San Francisco would generate $7.5 billion in new sales, including 54,000 new jobs. Because California is only planning a high-speed line, there was no economic comparison to slower service.

The economic benefits of HSR would grow over time as the new service was fully implemented and savings in travel time, expenses and congestion reduction were realized.

The new report is titled “Connecting America with High Speed Rail” and can be downloaded at https://www.usmayors.org/highspeedrail/.

Photo credit: Beto’s Photostream

Is 100% American Content the Best Route for High-Speed Rail?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Obama administration’s determination to enforce 100 percent American content for high-speed train systems is roiling the rail supply industry, with some executives saying the rule would be “impossible” to achieve and others wondering how much it will slow down high-speed rail (HSR) development and add to the sticker price.

“We’re living in a global rail industry,” said an official at a large U.S. transportation manufacturer that depends on foreign parts. “Insisting on all-American content could mean losing 10 years in building our HSR supply chain.”

Karen Rae, deputy director of the Federal Railroad Administration, surprised rail advocates when she announced last month that the White House has decided to enforce the “domestic buying preference” provision of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act (PRIIA), which authorized $8 billion in HSR grants to state governments earlier this year.

Rae said at a conference sponsored by America 2050 that the administration had determined there was “enough excess manufacturing capacity in the country” to permit HSR equipment to be made of U.S. content. As a result, the administration did not anticipate issuing exemptions from the domestic buying rule, as permitted under Section 504(2) of PRIIA.

While Rae lauded the decision as a tool “to help reenergize manufacturing in the U.S.,” executives canvassed in the railway supply business say the provision could have the opposite effect.

“We could wind up getting 100 percent of nothing,” said one executive who exchanged candor for anonymity.

Things We Don’t Make Anymore

He and others say the biggest obstacle to American content is simply that this country does not produce some critical components. Take computer chips. They are not made in the U.S. There are American-owned suppliers, such as Intel, but the product itself is manufactured in Asia.

Computer chips are everywhere in modern rail cars, controlling the electric doors, regulating the heat and air conditioning, monitoring the mechanical and electrical systems, managing the P.A. systems and customer-information signs, to say nothing of Wi-Fi and other electronics that would be required in any HSR car order.

Outside of components, the sad fact is that there has not been a builder of passenger cars since Pullman-Standard Co. completed an order for Superliner cars for Amtrak in the 1980s and then went out of business.

In place of Pullman-Standard and other former U.S. manufacturing powerhouses, such as the Budd Co., a number of foreign-based companies have developed facilities to assemble rail cars.

The German giant, Siemens, builds light-rail vehicles (streetcars) from imported parts at a factory in Sacramento. Japan’s Kawasaki assembles commuter railcars in Lincoln, Neb., and New York City subway cars in Yonkers, NY.

French-based Alstom built Surfliner shells for the state of California in Brazil, shipped them to Baltimore and trucked them to a former railroad shop in Hornell, NY, for final assembly.

Bombardier built the shells for Amtrak’s Acela trains in Quebec and then shipped them across the border to a plant in Vermont for finishing. Talgo builds in Spain, but can do final assembly in the U.S.

Morrison Knudsen tried to break into the car-building business 20 years ago, but failed when projects like the proposed “Texas Triangle” HSR line collapsed.

In short, while there are many abandoned manufacturing plants in the U.S., it would take time to convert these plants into usable spaces for HSR equipment. Even more time and treasure would be required to develop a workforce capable of building technology that has more in common with modern aviation than lumbering freight trains.

What’s Consistent with the Public Interest?

China has offered to supply the equipment and engineers to help build California’s proposed HSR line between San Diego and Sacramento. If California accepted China’s offer, would the state have to repay the $2.25 billion it was awarded in PRIIA funding?

The language of the federal law is broadly written. In carrying out a rail project “funded in whole or in part with a grant under this title,” PRIIA calls for recipients to purchase “only unmanufactured articles, material, and supplies mined or produced in the U.S.” or “articles, material, and supplies manufactured in the U.S. substantially from articles, material, and supplies mined, produced, or manufactured in the U.S.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) can waive this rule under three conditions: if the article is unreasonably expensive, if it is not produced in sufficient quantities, or if the requirement is “inconsistent with the public interest.”

It was assumed by the supply industry that the administration would use the law’s exemption liberally in order to expedite development of HSR lines. But Rae said that DOT’s No. 2 official, John Porcari, has been working with the White House to develop plans for 100 percent content and did not plan to issue any waivers.

Unintended Consequences

According to several suppliers, the literal interpretation of PRIIA could actually discourage American companies from entering the HSR field.

“Who wants to go through all these hoops only to find out you’re disqualified because some component is not considered American by a bureaucrat,” asked an executive.

One of the clearest-cut beneficiaries of the rule would appear to be domestic steelmakers supplying new track and structural steel. But who or what is a domestic steelmaker these days? Is it a company that owns plants in the U.S., a company owned by U.S. stockholders, or a company domiciled in the U.S.?

At present, foreign-owned-and-headquartered corporations control more than 35 percent of steel produced in the U.S. What’s more, half of the steel made here originates from raw materials mined outside of the country.

Similarly, GE Transportation, based in Erie, Pa., does a brisk business selling heavy-haul freight locomotives to China, Mexico, Brazil and Australia. Creating barriers for foreign suppliers may mean that overseas railroads won’t buy American in retaliation.

Getting Back on Track

The Obama administration would be wise to break free from the protectionist impulses of PRIIA and let all domestic and global rail suppliers compete for HSR contracts. Out of such competition, the best equipment and lowest prices should emerge.

A robust government policy toward high-speed rail would do wonders to revitalize entrepreneurship and encourage the private sector to enter the field.

This is the true challenge facing the Obama administration — establishing a long-term strategy for HSR, including how to finance the system. Parsing what is and isn’t “100% American” isn’t sound policy, it’s crowd-pleasing politics that will only delay the implementation of the administration’s own program.

Photo credit: Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Photostream

Africa’s First High-Speed Railway Opens for World Cup

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The first high-speed rail service on the African continent kicked off this morning, just in time to zip World Cup fans between Johannesburg’s airport and the suburb hosting the tournament.

Construction of the first phase of Gautrain, named after the Gauteng Province it runs through, was accelerated last year so that the link would be operational for the start of the World Cup on Friday.

Still it was open to question whether the route between O. R. Tambo International Airport and Sandton would actually be ready for the soccer tournament, which is expected to attract half-a-million fans over 30 days of competition. But a certificate to operate the system was issued yesterday after several weeks of successful tests.

The line is less a true intercity railway than a souped-up transit system running at 100 mph. Top speeds have been dampened by the decision to locate stations every four to eight miles along the line.

Nevertheless, the gold-and-blue-trimmed Gautrains have caused a sensation in a country where conventional train service is slow and public-transit investment was banished for decades under apartheid policies intended to keep blacks and whites apart.

Today most middle-class South Africans drive everywhere, clogging the main highways, while the poor depend on mini-buses and foot power. To lure South Africans to the new service, the government has developed elaborate security measures, including closed-circuit cameras in the stations and trains.

The rail line slashes the travel time between the airport and Johannesburg from an hour by road to less than 15 minutes. The second phase, connecting Johannesburg with Pretoria, will be opened next year and will cut an hour from the present highway time.

The project is being constructed as a private-public partnership between the provincial government and a consortium that includes Canadian trainmaker Bombardier, South Africa’s ABSA Bank, and French contractor Bouygues.

The consortium has a 15½-year concession to operate the rail line after construction is completed in 2011.

Photo credit: DazMSmith

High-Speed Rail May Stall Without More Push from the White House

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Unless the White House acts forcefully and decisively to advance its transportation agenda in Congress, the president’s vision for high-speed rail may get sidetracked by the looming federal deficit.

That’s the growing perception on Capitol Hill as Congress grapples with an infrastructure program that could cost between $22 million and $132 million a mile if developed along the lines of 200-mile-per-hour bullet trains now running in Europe and Asia.

Unlike the health care debate, President Obama has been conspicuously unengaged from the details of how to move his high-speed-rail (HSR) plan from a one-off award program using Recovery Act stimulus funds to a dedicated multi-year program akin to the scope and ambition of the Interstate Highway System.

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has raised concerns about the program’s lack of a solid revenue source. In a letter addressed to the president, Chairman James L. Oberstar (D-MN) and Railroad Subcommittee Chair Corrine Brown (D-FL) wrote:

We stand ready to help move your vision of high-speed rail closer to reality. But given budget constraints, we cannot continue to rely on general authorizations and appropriations to finance high-speed rail. We need to identify a dedicated revenue source for high-speed rail, and we need your help to do that.

More than 100 House members signed the letter.

What has especially upset HSR supporters is that, in the wake of $8 billion awarded to states last January under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, there is precious little additional funding earmarked for the program.

Congress authorized $2.5 billion for HSR projects in the current fiscal year, but HSR funding then drops to just $1 billion under the administration’s proposed FY 2011 budget.

That’s not enough to complete the 85-mile corridor proposed between Tampa and Orlando, not to speak of helping underwrite such ambitious projects as California’s proposed 800-mile HSR network connecting the state’s largest cities.

A coalition of transportation advocacy groups is calling on Congress to appropriate $4 billion for high-speed rail in 2011. Tomorrow the coalition will hold a press conference at Washington’s Union Station to present their case, with Rep. Brown among those scheduled to speak.

Last summer, Oberstar’s committee introduced a draft bill that would place $50 billion in the reauthorized surface transportation program to fund HSR development over the next six years. The actual method of funding the program was left open “in hopes that the administration would help Congress identify a dedicated revenue source for high-speed rail,” according to Oberstar.

The establishment of a national infrastructure bank, which would leverage private capital, has been discussed as a possible source for rail funding. Oberstar has embraced this idea in principle.

Another idea is to raise the federal tax on gasoline (which was last raised 28 years ago during the Reagan administration) to increase the revenue stream to the Highway Trust Fund. Some portion of the trust fund would then go to HSR development.

For its part, the administration opposes a gas tax increase and has proposed a more modest transportation infrastructure fund. Financed with $4 billion in public money, the bank would help bankroll transportation projects of national significance, presumably including HSR. This proposal has yet to be taken up by Congress.

Like any political vacuum in Washington, the absence of a strategy to pay for high-speed rail has emboldened critics of the program.

Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), the ranking minority member of the Senate transportation appropriations subcommittee, last month lambasted the administration for spending funds on expensive trains during a budget crunch. “With a $12 trillion and growing [federal] deficit, we can’t just throw funds at projects willy-nilly,” he said.

Patty Murray (D-WA), chair of the Senate panel, also questioned the absence of a long-term plan by the administration.

While some of this criticism is ill-founded – the administration is on target for completing a National Rail Plan by the date requested by Congress — what the carping on Capitol Hill makes clear is that both sides of the aisle recognize that a modern rail infrastructure will be very expensive to build.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to commit to a potentially unpopular funding mechanism — such as an increase in the gas tax — that could jumpstart HSR development and allow states, manufacturers and potential rail operators to make long-term investments in infrastructure and manpower.

The need for administration leadership is clear. Lest he watch his vision dissolve in drift and delay, the president must make the case that a national program of rail construction will not only unsnarl our highways, but stimulate economic growth (with new jobs and emerging technologies) and protect our national security (by breaking our dependence on foreign oil). The time to start is now.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mujitra/ / CC BY 2.0

Florida Seeks More Speed on Its Tampa-Orlando Rail Line

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

While the Obama administration has been busy deflating expectations for rail passenger service above 110 miles per hour, Florida is improving the design of its corridor between Tampa and Orlando so trains can run above 180 mph.*

This nugget of good news came within the confines of testimony given Monday by Florida Transportation Secretary Stephanie Kopelousos at a hearing in Miami before a congressional panel reviewing the $8 billion in rail grants awarded in January.

Florida’s decision to speed up its trains amounts to a subtle rebuke of the Obama administration’s rail strategy. Joseph Szabo, chief of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), has argued before the same congressional panel that trains running at 150-200 mph, as is common in Europe and Asia, aren’t necessary on most intercity corridors.

Outside of Florida and California, the Obama administration has set 110 mph as the top speed for passenger trains that would use existing upgraded track owned by freight railroads. Rep. John Mica (R-FL), the ranking minority member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has denounced the administration’s plans as fake high-speed rail.

While Florida originally projected maximum speeds of 168 mph for the Tampa-Orlando route, “our engineering team is designing this system to international standards and is evaluating design options to increase speed and decrease travel time,” Kopelousos said.

The redesign is expected to whisk passengers from downtown Tampa to Orlando International Airport (85 miles) in “under 45 minutes,” Kopelousos said, compared to 56-59 minutes under the previous design.

This places the Florida system in line with the speed performance of most European trains, such as France’s famous TGV network. The accelerated trip represents a significant time savings over highway travel, which typically takes 80-90 minutes between Tampa and Orlando.

Kopelousos pledged to seek more federal funds to complete the Tampa-Orlando line. Florida sought $2.65 billion, but the FRA granted only $1.25 billion from the pot of high-speed rail funds awarded in January.

The shortfall has brought jitters to state transportation planners. But given Florida’s position as a battleground state in national elections, it seems unlikely that the Obama administration would forsake the project. A more plausible scenario is that additional federal money will come in spurts as the state completes phases of the corridor.

Florida also wants to build a high-speed line between Orlando and Miami. The FRA rejected Florida’s application for $30 million to start planning this leg of the railway, but Kopelousos said the state is funding its own planning work and will reapply for federal aid.

The Florida legislature has established the Florida Rail Enterprise, modeled on the Florida Turnpike Authority, to oversee the building of the railway, which is initially projected to carry two million passengers a year and earn a small profit that will grow once the Orlando-Miami segment is completed.

The Tampa-Orlando line will have a station stop at Disney World. About half of the passengers are expected to be tourists headed to Disney or to other tourism and recreational destinations in the region.

Building the railway along the median strip of I-4, rather than using private land or mixing the route with existing freight train lines, has reduced overall costs. When the state widened I-4 some years ago, it spent an extra $600 million reconfiguring the roadway and building overpasses with enough clearance for trains.

If all goes on schedule, the first trains will be running in 2015, making Tampa and Orlando the first metropolitan areas in the country connected by a railway dedicated to high-speed passenger service.

Graphic: Florida Department of Transportation

*Correction: This item originally stated that Florida is improving the Tampa-Orlando corridor design so trains can run up to 200 mph.

Obama Rail Chief Feels No Need for Speed

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

A year ago, when laying out his vision of fast trains zipping between major cities like they do in Europe and Asia, President Obama invoked the words of Chicago architect Daniel Burnham: “Make no little plans.”

Last month, Obama’s top rail administrator, Joseph Szabo, was in Chicago touting little plans — and slow trains — at a congressional field hearing about how the administration spent $8 billion in high-speed rail grants.

Trains might travel at or near 200 miles per hour overseas, but such velocity isn’t really necessary in the U.S., Szabo, chief of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), said. “There are some that believe that only investments yielding 200-mph service will yield benefits. The facts show otherwise,” he asserted in testimony before a House Transportation and Infrastructure panel.

Instead, he said the FRA “views high-speed and intercity passenger rail service in the context of the transportation markets served and the needs of the passengers rather than as a race to see how fast a piece of equipment can move.”

Such criteria helps explain why the FRA allocated more than half of high-speed rail grants to projects that don’t qualify as high speed by international standards. They include extending conventional Amtrak service from Portland, Maine, north to Brunswick.

Szabo praised Amtrak’s current trains between Boston and Portland as an example of modern service that attracts passengers — a rather breathtaking rewriting of the line’s actual history. Seventy years ago when the Boston & Maine Railway operated the line, trains made the Boston-Portland trip in one hour, 50 minutes. Today, Amtrak takes two hours, 25 minutes — or a third longer — to cover the same ground.

It’s this kind of regress, rather than progress, that has turned America’s once-superb railway system into a marginal operation outside of the Boston-Washington Northeast Corridor.

Szabo acted as the cheerleader for other rail grants handed out by his agency, such as $1.1 billion to add sidings and signals between Chicago and St. Louis to increase train speeds to a maximum of 110 mph.

When rolling out his rail plans a year ago, President Obama said that 110 mph was only a first step in attaining the type of fast train networks found in places like France, Spain and China. But a year later, the FRA bureaucracy seems ready to make the “first step” a long-term goal, which will only guarantee that America stays on the slow track behind the rest of the world.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nfu/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

One Winner in the Aviation Crisis: Europe’s Railways

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The media’s blanket coverage of the travel chaos gripping Europe has overlooked just one thing — fast and frequent trains have gotten hundreds of thousands of travelers to their destinations safely and on time while airplanes sat on the tarmac.

In fact, if there’s any winner in the crisis that began when a cloud of ash from an Icelandic volcano drifted over the continent, it’s Europe’s railways. They have operated with few disruptions at the same time air flight was grounded by authorities over safety concerns.

Since trains handle a large portion of commercial traffic between many cities, the average European has not been hurt by the “transportation tsunami” breathlessly described by CNN and other media outlets.

Travelers most affected by the air ban have been international flyers, such as British tourists coming back from Easter vacations in the Mediterranean and passengers on transatlantic flights, who couldn’t land in northern Europe, Scandinavia or the British Isles.

Since last Thursday, high-speed Eurostar trains have been the only direct link between London and the rest of the world. Running through the English “chunnel,” Eurostar has added trains to its daily roster of 32 trains to and from Paris and 18 trains to and from Brussels.

An estimated 50,000 passengers took the trains between Thursday and Sunday, a 30-percent jump from normal bookings. Eurostar’s website says trains are sold out through the end of this week, but that special service will be added to accommodate still-stranded air passengers.

Elsewhere in Europe, trains have been packed. A EuroCity train from Italy to France was so crowded over the weekend that people could barely squeeze through the doors. A Swiss Federal Railways spokesman said trains have been reconfigured with twice as many cars as normal to handle the increased patronage.

Although airports across Europe are preparing to resume limited flights today along “safe air corridors,” it will take days, if not a full week, before normal operations are reestablished, according to aviation officials.

Much will depend on the status of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. It continues to spew out thick clouds of ash, whose microscopic shards of rock, glass and sand can stop jet engines by melting and congealing in turbines.

The volcano’s unexpected activity — leading to the biggest flight ban in aviation history — is a stark reminder of the vulnerability of air travel and the necessity of having solid transportation alternatives in a crisis.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kbs478/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

High-Speed Rail Agency Limits Public Comment Period

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

If you want to submit your thoughts about Washington’s strategy to develop high-speed passenger trains, you better act fast.

That’s because the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has decided it’s in too much of a hurry to listen to a traditional period of public comment about its National Rail Plan, a document aimed at formulating a strategy to modernize America’s rail passenger and freight service.

When the FRA completed its Preliminary National Rail Plan last October, it emphasized that involvement by the public was essential. “The FRA’s National Rail Plan will involve a vigorous outreach strategy….To ensure that we capture nationwide input, FRA will place a notice in the Federal Register for the opening of a docket for anyone who may wish to submit written input,” the report concluded.

Last week, the FRA announced in the Register a 60-day period for public comment on the rail plan. But in a curious aside, the notice stated, “For comments to be considered during the critical stages of plan development, they should be received no later than May 3, 2010” – or four weeks before the June 4 deadline.

An agency official said yesterday that the FRA had decided to place public comments on “an aggressive timeline” so that the agency could complete its rail plan by the September 15 date requested by Congress.

Not only is the effective comment period limited, but the questions for which the agency seeks public input are quite circumscribed.

For example, whether passenger rail should be built on new, dedicated lines or existing freight train corridors — a matter that has provoked much public debate — is sidestepped in the comment notice.

Instead, the notice asks the public to address how to blend passenger service into freight corridors, including how improved passenger rail can be “balanced with freight railroad service requirements to assure that freight service will not be impeded.”

The 34-page Preliminary National Rail Plan was notable for its vagueness and lack of vision, which led critic Yonah Freeman to dub it a “rail plan with virtually no planning included.”

The final plan promises to be lengthier but no more specific in terms of proposing which high-speed corridors should be prioritized, what baseline train speeds should be placed into practice and what design criteria should be established for state plans.

According to FRA’s comment notice, the plan will consist of three main components:

  • a review of the current system, including a state-by-state list of rail plans proposed or under development
  • a “consideration of issues and policies that can ensure that the nation’s rail system is truly considered in surface transportation discussions about moving people and goods”
  • a “recommendation of programs, policies, and investments that will be required so the nation can be served with a transportation system that is safe and efficient”

In contrast to overseas competitors such as China, Washington’s rail planners appear determined to peddle platitudes and process, while avoiding concrete goals and specific timetables to establish a world-class rail program.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomas-merton/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

China’s Great Leap Forward on High-Speed Rail

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

If we are going to create a new mode of intercity transportation that gets Americans out of their cars — that reduces our dependence on oil from unstable or hostile countries and cuts greenhouse gas emissions -– we have to start thinking creatively.

Like the Chinese. Ten years ago, China still operated steam locomotives on a second-rate rail network. After years of highway building, the government realized that its fast-growing economy and isolated interior provinces could be better served by improved train service.

Before embarking on a rail-building program in 2000, however, China’s leaders made a crucial decision. They mandated state-of-the-art standards for constructing, equipping and operating the new lines. In other words, they would accept only the best technology the world had to offer.

The Ministry of Railways called upon international firms, such as Netherlands’ Arcadis Infra, France’s Alstom and Germany’s Siemens, to enter into joint ventures with Chinese companies to build the bridges, tunnels, track, signaling, cars and locomotives needed for the new railways.

Within a short time span, China developed leapfrog technology. This was vividly demonstrated four months ago when the country opened the world’s fastest rail line. The new service between Wuhan and Guangzhou operates at a 245-mph maximum and a 204-mph average. The trains have cut the 600-mile journey between central China and the southeast coast from 10 hours to three.

The country is on schedule to open in 2012 the centerpiece of its national system, a line between Beijing and Shanghai that will reduce the trip time to four hours from 10 hours today.

New York to Chicago is a similar distance. What would it be like to leave Manhattan on a smooth, comfortable bullet train in the morning and get to the Loop in time for lunch? That journey now takes 18 hours on Amtrak, the antithesis of high speed.

And talk about a project that generates jobs — more than 100,000 people are working on the Beijing-Shanghai line.

The U.S. desperately needs a similar success, the sooner, the better. Once Americans experience the convenience and safety of fast trains, they will demand more and, importantly, will be willing to make the large investments needed to create an efficient intercity network.

For months now, critics have assailed plans in California to link Los Angeles and San Francisco with 220-mph trains as too grandiose and pricey. But guess what? The Chinese government has just signed a cooperation agreement with the California High Speed Rail Authority. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to travel Beijing for talks with rail ministry officials to hammer out a deal.

The Chinese have expressed interest not only in selling equipment for the new railway, but to help finance the line’s construction by diverting some of China’s vast reserves of U.S. dollars into direct infrastructure investment.

This comes on the heels of a reported Chinese offer to invest $7 billion in a bid by a private group to build a 185-mile high-speed railway along Interstate-15 from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Victorville, Calif.

By insisting on the highest standards, China overcame years of inertia and pivoted itself to the forefront of a 21st-century transportation revolution.

Maybe the Chinese model — backed by Chinese capital — will help America overcome the technological timidity that now leaves us with Amtrak and the still-unfulfilled dreams of something better.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/henrie

Airline Screening, See-I-Told-You-So Edition

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

About two months ago, I wrote an opinion piece for the Cleveland Plain Dealer‘s website on the virtues of a “smart selectee list.” My point was that Americans are essentially programmed to throw money at terrorism, but that more effective and cheaper measures are available.

For example, following the Christmas Day bombing attempt, the Obama administration announced that it would spend some $700 million on full-body screening machines. Sure, they’ll be effective for a while, but it’s only a matter of time before someone somewhere finds a way to either beat the machine or to blow up an airline that doesn’t involve explosives smuggled onboard by a passenger. If terrorism over the last 20 years has taught us anything, it’s that terrorists adapt to beat new security measures.

Instead, here’s how my “smart selectee list” would work:

It’s time to construct a security apparatus that intelligently accounts for signs of potentially dangerous passengers while balancing risk, passenger inconvenience and privacy concerns — and saves money in the process.

Rather than purchase enough body scanners to take naked pictures of everyone boarding a flight, the TSA and National Counter Terrorism Center should review one of the least discussed but potentially most effective devices it already has on the books: the “selectee” list. …

It’s time to let the selectee list think for itself. With technological innovation, the list could be transformed into a “smart” anti-terrorism tool: Allegedly dangerous individuals would be added, but additional passenger screening is triggered only when an algorithm connects potential attackers to a suspect travel itinerary and during periods of elevated, if vague, threat levels. Individuals selected for additional screening must be shared with the airlines.

For example, if an allegedly dangerous Elizabeth Kennedy is set to travel from Dublin to the United States, her profile would trigger additional screening only when the list automatically connects her name, travel itinerary and an ongoing Ireland-based threat. If the threat is based out of, say, France, or once an analyst determines it has lapsed, she would undergo standard security procedures.

It seems like the administration is starting to come around:

Before Dec. 25, airlines were given the no-fly list of people to be barred from flights altogether and a second “selectee” list of passengers to be subjected to more thorough screening. Those lists have been expanded considerably this year and now contain about 6,000 and 20,000 names respectively, officials said.

The new system will send the airlines additional names of passengers not on either the no-fly or selectee list but identified as possible security risks because of intelligence about threats. Only the names of the passengers selected for extra screening, not the underlying intelligence, will be shared with airlines and foreign security personnel, officials said.

The details of this program remain a bit sketchy, but it would appear that the administration is linking threat-based information to travelers who share the same name as the potentially dangerous. Potentiality is an important concept in this process — the intelligence community was faulted for the Christmas attempt because it failed to “connect the dots” even though intelligence is designed to only link together credible dots. And I’d argue that in the case of that incident there weren’t credible dots to connect. There was a lot of possibly credible stuff out there, but none of it was ironclad.

This new system appears to trigger additional screening when information of unknown credibility is linked together at the point of attack. It’s a smart method that’s in stark contrast to the indiscriminate body screening of passengers. For passengers whose names come up under the new selectee process, undergoing additional screening would be a relatively minor inconvenience. But the targeted patdown would be an effective security measure that doesn’t trample civil liberties and minimizes the inconvenience for most passengers.

New Fuel Efficiency Rules a Historic Turn for Climate Policy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Energy and climate legislation may be stalled in Congress, but President Obama is pressing forward on another crucial, clean energy front.

In a historic first, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation yesterday issued rules regulating greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks. In 2007, the Supreme Court had ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that the EPA had the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. That decision paved the way for last year’s determination by the agency that CO2 and other greenhouse gases were dangerous pollutants. The rules announced yesterday combine traditional efficiency standards with direct regulation of CO2 emissions from vehicles (a proxy for fuel consumption).

Under the new standards, by model year 2016 vehicles must get an average of 35.5 miles per gallon. The requirements — which represent the administration’s most significant achievement in reducing global warming pollution — are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars by 21 percent by 2030. The announced rule was the final implementation of a deal made by the Obama administration with the auto manufacturers last year, whereby the industry would get the certainty of a national standard in exchange for dropping their extensive litigation meant to prevent California from mandating similar tailpipe emissions standards (and having a dozen or so states follow suit).

Not to take any credit, but back in 2004, Jan Mazurek and I wrote a paper for PPI titled “Clean Cars – Kicking America’s Oil Habit,” in which we argued for adopting a strong tailpipe emission approach to fuel economy. In addition to compelling environmental and national security arguments for stricter fuel efficiency rules, our motivation was to suggest a new framework beyond the broken and stale political battles over CAFE standards – the Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules that had not been raised in a generation in large part because of firm opposition from Detroit and its protectors on Capitol Hill.

We and others argued that by focusing capital and political resources on lawyers, lobbyists and the short-term political objective of defeating annual meager attempts by the environmental community to increase CAFE standards, Detroit was missing the larger vision that global automotive competiveness would be shaped in the future by innovation around fuel economy and environmental performance. We felt that the exigencies of climate change and the inevitable structural rise in fuel costs stemming from increasing global demand and the rising marginal costs of production meant that the “clean car innovators” would have an advantage in the global marketplace.

The Bush administration, after a costly “head fake” over hydrogen that caused many to take their eye off the fuel-economy ball, did propose some modest increases in CAFE standards, but they were far short of what was needed to restructure our national approach to competitiveness in the international auto marketplace, or to seriously address the economic, environmental and security threats posed by our addiction to oil.

Ultimately, it took a prostrate domestic auto industry and a high-flying new Democratic president to take serious action. The result should be seen by nearly all as a true win-win. Automakers get a national standard, we finally have a policy aimed squarely at both greenhouse gas emissions and oil dependence, and – we hope – Detroit will lay off some lobbyists while creating jobs for smart engineers.

Of course, nothing is so simple. We now see that the ultra-conservative attorney general from Virginia, in yet another pander to tea party types, has vowed to file a lawsuit challenging the new rules. (I thought it was liberals who were supposed like frivolous lawsuits?) God knows what his arguments will be, but let’s hope he comes up with a clever basis for being against jobs, innovation, increased national security and a more stable climate. Bring it on.