With its three final members in place and a host of competing interests anxious to steer, a new commission prepared to set off down the politically charged path toward setting strategies for planning and funding the nation’s transportation infrastructure.
This month, the White House named the final three members of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, one of two commissions created in last year’s highway bill to look at the future of the nation’s highway system and how it is funded.
The White House chose Cornell University professor Raymond “Rick” Geddes, Office Depot CEO Stephen Odland and former Federal Highway Administration chief Mary Peters.
Geddes wrote about postal reform, another recent presidential commission subject, in his current job and as a fellow at the Hoover Institution, and he is an associate professor at Cornell’s College of Human Ecology. According to his Cornell biography, Geddes’ research includes “the effects of regulation on corporate governance” and “postal economics.”
Odland took over the reins of Office Depot a year ago and previously was chairman and CEO of AutoZone. Prior to that, he was an executive with Ahold USA, Sara Lee Bakery and Quaker Oats.
Peters gave $3,050 to the Bush presidential campaign during the 2004 election cycle, while Odland gave $2,000 to the Republican National Committee as well as regular contributions to Auto Zone’s political action committee, which overwhelmingly tilted its contributions to Republican candidates.
The Bush administration wants to ing to strike the ownership deal.
advance aviation treaty negotiations The Senate amendment was offered
with Europe, but it will have to make by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and
more progress with Congress first. was supported by Senate Appropria-
A key Senate panel voted this month to tions Committee Chairman Ted
bar the Department of Transportation Stevens, R-Alaska. Shortly before the
from liberalizing foreign ownership rules committee passed the amendment,
for U.S. airlines, a key element in treaty Inouye and Stevens met with Trans-
talks with the European Union. portation Secretary Norman Mineta to
The Senate Appropriations Committee discuss their concerns about the foreign
joined the House Appropriations Com- ownership change.
mittee, which voted in March for a delay “I believe that we made some
in a DOT rulemaking to loosen the own- progress with the secretary and his
ership barriers. The rulemaking, which staff,” Inouye said. “However, we are not
the agency published in late 2005, would prepared at this point to simply agree to
allow foreign owners to have greater con- let the proposed rule become a final
trol of the operations of U.S. airlines. But rule. There are too many questions still
it would not increase the ownership limit. unanswered, and I hope that over time
U.S. airlines are split on the change but we will be able to resolve and clarify
FedEx, which hopes it breaks a deadlock some of these concerns.”
in trans-Atlantic air trade talks, strongly The same bill that addresses the airline
favors it. Labor unions are staunchly ownership issue also contains $648 mil-
opposed and want Congress to block the lion in port security funding, directed to
change. Many lawmakers say they believe buy radiation portal monitors and other
the DOT circumvented Congress in try- screening devices and services.
With several transportation-related federal nominees caught up in the shadowy “hold” process in the U.S. Senate, one senator is trying to change the venerable practice.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, sponsored a successful Senate amendment last month that would require that holds be made public. The vote came the day Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., lifted a hold he had put on Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, whom the Senate then approved to be the new Coast Guard commandant.
Ensign released the hold after meeting with Allen, who led the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina after Michael Brown left the Federal Emergency Management Administration.
“Like most Americans, I was appalled at the federal government’s response to the disaster in New Orleans,” Ensign said in a statement. “The problems and failures that occurred are widespread and complex, and it is imperative that we learn from the errors that occurred.”
Ensign was public about his hold, as Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has been about his hold on Federal Highway Administration nominee Rick Capka.
But many senators block nominees quietly. Grassley and his supporters want to change that by requiring that information on holds be made public.
“Being transparent about a hold doesn’t hurt,” Grassley said in a statement. “I’ve been putting a statement about any hold that I’ve placed in the congressional record for nearly 10 years now, and I haven’t once been bloodied or battered. The Senate is the people’s business, and the people’s business ought to be public.”
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