Amendments to Boxer- Inhofe bill

I'll pull this out of America Bikes email:

"Senator Cardin (D- MD). His amendment addresses several concerns with the Active Transportation section of the bill, including removing road uses, increasing funding levels, as well as sub-allocating funds to local governments, and opening funding to an application process."
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The full email is in the Read More
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Hi All,

On the Alliance Federal Strategies call yesterday we updated you on the Boxer- Inhofe draft of the Transportation bill. We have serious concerns for the treatment of dedicated funding for biking and walking. We are still very concerned, but we had some good news today from Boxer’s staff.

As we stated yesterday, Transportation Enhancements, Safe Routes to School and the Recreational Trails program were lumped into one program along with new environmental mitigation uses and a number of road uses, including HOV lanes, redesign of highways, etc. The program takes a cut in funding (compared to the funding the three programs get now) and has an opt out provision. Today Senator Boxer has gotten bipartisan support for an amendment that will remove all but one of the road uses. We appreciate her willingness to make this change. There is still a lot of work to do but this gives us hope that we can continue to make changes working with her in the future to restore dedicated funding.

The EPW Committee will be holding a ‘mark up’ of the bill tomorrow where they will debate amendments and vote on the bill. Usually this would give a chance for members of the committee to offer amendments to improve the bill, and those amendments would be debated and voted on. Usually we would be doing alerts asking Committee Members to vote for an amendment to fix dedicated funding for biking and walking. However, Wednesday’s Committee mark up is a sham. The “Big 4,” Senators Boxer (D-CA), Inhofe (R-OK), Baucus (D-MT) and Vitter (R-LA) have stated they will vote together as a bloc to stop any amendment on either side from passing.

The Boxer amendment will pass because she has gotten the support of leadership.

Several other of our friends on the committee have filed amendments to improve the language for active transportation. Depending on time they may be offered, discussed and then withdrawn before a vote is taken. These amendments include:

Senator Cardin (D- MD). His amendment addresses several concerns with the Active Transportation section of the bill, including removing road uses, increasing funding levels, as well as sub-allocating funds to local governments, and opening funding to an application process.
Senator Merkley (D-OR). Sen. Merkley is introducing a message amendment that requires 2% of all funding go to biking and walking infrastructure and programs.
Senator Carper (D-DE) Carper is introducing a CLEAN TEA amendment that sets national energy security goal, requires state/MPO plans to address oil, assesses progress every 5 years
Senator Udall (D-NM) Udall’s amendment adds non-motorized users to the list of interested parties in safety and planning processes

We have worked with them on this process, and will send a formal thank you. We have not done a grassroots alert as there is no decision here to influence.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me at 202-215-3908 or caron@americabikes.org

Caron


Caron Whitaker
Campaign Director
America Bikes
1612 K Street, NW Suite 802
Washington, DC 20036

(ph)202-215-3908
(f) 202-223-3181
(e) caron@americabikes.org

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