By PAUL C. BARTON
Gannett Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Fresh from a battle with House Republicans over aviation funding, congressional Democrats led by Sen. Barbara Boxer will soon clash with their GOP counterparts over highway and mass transit programs. The potential jobs at stake for California - and the nation - dwarf those of the airport funding scrap.
Federal funding for highway construction and repair, as well as mass transit, expires Sept. 30, at a time when some say infrastructure improvements are a great way to put people to work in a struggling economy.
When lawmakers return from their August recess, House Republicans led by Rep. John Mica of Florida want to pass new legislation that cuts funding for those programs by 33 percent to 36 percent. Mica says the funding difference can be offset through expedited environmental regulations related to road projects, more regulatory flexibility for state highway officials and opportunities for public-private partnerships.
"Obviously we'd all like to have more resources available to us, but the fact is we don't," said Justin Harclerode, spokesman for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which Mica chairs.
Mica's proposals for surface transportation conform to the 2012 budget outline of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., which passed the House in April but was rejected by the Senate.
Democrats and liberal groups said the Ryan budget would decimate key domestic programs and withdraw too much federal money from the economy during a still-fragile recovery from recession.
Republicans and conservatives said the cuts were necessary to put the nation's fiscal affairs in order and ensure the long-term survival of some of the programs.
Meanwhile, Mica and Boxer were protagonists in the House-Senate quarrel over Federal Aviation Administration funding, which caused the temporary lay off of more than 4,000 FAA employees and 70,000 workers on airport construction projects, including the new airport tower in Palm Springs.
For California, Mica's highway-mass transit plan would mean a reduction of $1.25 billion from the $3.42 billion in federal road money it receives annually and a loss of 43,489 jobs, the Federal Highway Administration project.
Nationwide, highway funding would be cut $14.1 billion and job losses would approach 490,000.
For mass transit, California would lose $468 million from its current $1.26 billion a year, resulting in 17,566 jobs lost, the same projections show.
Nationwide, the loss to mass transit would be $3.8 billion and 141,000 jobs.
Three California Republicans, Reps. Mary Bono Mack of Palm Springs, Jerry Lewis of Redlands and Devin Nunes of Tulare, say they are reviewing the proposal.
"We can save a lot of money by consolidating duplicative programs and eliminating other programs that no longer justify their expense in these difficult economic times," Bono Mack said. "At the end of this process, I believe a smart, efficient use of our transportation dollars will help to boost the U.S. economy and create new jobs."
For Nunes, "everything has to be on the table to balance the budget and reduce the national debt," spokesman Stephen Thompson said.
Boxer, who has developed her own highway and mass transit proposal as chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, says Mica's plan misses a chance to help construction workers, a key segment of the unemployed, and represents a cutback in infrastructure investment as economic rivals, especially China, pour money into such projects.
"We are at a critical moment . . . when it comes to our nation's infrastructure," Boxer said at a recent press conference.
Congress, she added, must decide "which path to choose: protect jobs and put people to work, or throw hundreds of thousands of people out of work in a sector that has suffered enormously during the recession."
Boxer's bill would hold surface transportation funding at current levels for the next two years. To do that, she must come up with $12 billion in savings from other areas of the federal government to use for the federal Highway Trust Fund. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., has promised to help.
In the House, Boxer's views on the Mica bill have been seconded by Rep. Sam Farr of Carmel and the 31 other House Democrats from the California delegation. They sent the Florida Republican a letter this week citing an American Society of Civil Engineers estimate that crumbling roads cost American families and businesses $129 billion in 2010 through travel delays, environmental problems and other issues.
In an interview, Farr said the Mica bill represents a form of "trickle-down" economics with potentially disastrous consequences for California. The scenic and famous Highway 1 that hugs the Pacific coastline near Carmel, he said, is just one example of a national asset badly in need of repair. In Salinas, road problems add to traffic delays that can spark road rage, he added.
And Farr takes a dim view of Mica's position that public-private partnerships and more flexible regulations can help states and localities compensate for funding cuts.
"I've never known charity to put out a fire or pave a road," he said.
Boxer's bill, not Mica's, has the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an organization that normally sides with GOP lawmakers. The AFL-CIO is also backing her.
Also in her corner are numerous Senate Republicans who have a fondness for highway projects, including James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking member of her committee, and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, whose state is home to major manufacturers of road-building materials.
Mica, responding to criticisms in a statement, called it "disappointing and sad that some Democrats have launched a personal and partisan attack on the Republican proposal."
He said his bill was developed with bipartisan input from across the country and that anyone who takes time to study it "will realize that (it) can ensure that even more transportation projects will move forward, the Trust Fund will be preserved, and significant job creation over a six-year period will result."
Gannett Washington Bureau