Episode 145: What’s Happening with Federal Transportation Dollars? 

 

Doug Gordon: Hey, Sarah.

Sarah Goodyear: Hey, Doug.

Doug: So it’s February.

Sarah: It is. It can be a difficult month.

Doug: We are experiencing some weather.

Sarah: There’s always weather in February.

Doug: And I have been wearing my Rover rain cape, because the best part about it is when the weather stinks and it’s cold, you just put it over whatever you’re wearing. So it’s great. Like, I don’t have to have a separate big snow outfit like some kid going out to go sledding or something. I just put this on over.

Sarah: That’s right. And especially when it’s a wintry mix, when it’s changing back and forth from sleet to snow to freezing rain and back again, Cleverhood has you covered. And yes, underneath, you can have your puffer. You can have whatever you need to stay warm and cozy.

Doug: They’re very versatile jackets. We are so appreciative of Cleverhood and all they do for The War on Cars. They don’t just keep us dry, they don’t just keep us visible when we’re out on our bikes, but they support us and they support so many great organizations. We’re so grateful for their support.

Sarah: It’s like a nice cozy hug to put on the Cleverhood and to know that they are out there just hugging the whole world.

Doug: That’s lovely! Well, speaking of hugs and love, you can get 15 percent off everything in the Cleverhood store now through the end of February if you use the code DESIGNEDWITHLOVE at Cleverhood.com/WarOnCars.

Sarah: Cleverhood. It’s like a big, warm hug.

Doug: Again, that’s Cleverhood.com/WarOnCars, DESIGNEDWITHLOVE.

Beth Osborne: Throughout my career, I have often seen the Heritage Foundation type come into Republican administrations. And they’re like, “Transit’s just for big cities, and we’re coming after transit.” And then you show them the list of transit agencies, and there’s nearing a thousand of them, and they’re overwhelmingly in smaller and rural communities. And they’re shocked every time, and they’re shocked every time to know that it’s actually rural small towns that want to re-establish the walkability of their main street and that businesses like having people walking around. And it’s not some liberal plot; it’s actually the most central concept of rural Americana.

Sarah: Welcome to The War on Cars. I’m Sarah Goodyear. As you may have noticed, there has been some disruption lately in Washington, DC. The Trump administration has upended the entire United States government over the last several weeks, sending Elon Musk and his minions into the guts of pretty much every federal department from Social Security to education in a crusade for what they are calling “efficiency.” Funds that were legally appropriated by Congress have been frozen and in some cases even clawed back.

Sarah: The battle to preserve all sorts of spending is now in the courts, but the executive branch doesn’t seem all that interested in recognizing judicial checks and balances. In a system where things usually move at a glacial pace, the glaciers are suddenly melting fast. No one really knows what will happen from hour to hour. So what does all of this mean for the Department of Transportation and the related infrastructure we talk about on this podcast?

Sarah: Today, we have a guest who can explain it as well as anybody. Beth Osborne is the executive director of Transportation for America, a national organization based in Washington that advocates for a safe, efficient, multimodal transportation system that truly serves all Americans. Beth was previously at the US Department of Transportation, where she served as the Acting Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy. She understands the way the federal government funds transportation and influences the shape of the communities we live in as well as anybody could. So we are looking to her to help us understand what is happening in Washington. Beth Osborne, welcome to The War on Cars.

Beth Osborne: Thank you so much for having me. I feel like you’ve held me to a very high standard. You’re asking me to use my experience with a traditional style of governance to explain something totally unprecedented. I will do my very best, but no one’s ever seen anything like this, so you’ll forgive me for being as befuddled as anybody.

Sarah: [laughs] Yes. All forgiveness going out to you, because I think we’re all— “befuddled” is the word. And we’re having you on the show under very different circumstances than the last time, which I think was back in 2021, when President Joe Biden—remember him?—had just closed the deal on a huge infrastructure spending bill that would pump billions into things like public transit, the transition to electric vehicles, road safety, passenger rail and much more that we love and care about on this show.

Beth Osborne: But he also pumped money into new highways, expanded highways, roadways that should be serving neighborhoods that instead were serving people passing through those neighborhoods. We basically were bought off with the stuff we liked and tolerated the damage. And the accounting did not come out well for our priorities. We are watching emissions go up under the IIJA because the stuff that we were bought off for was nowhere near enough to make up for the damage that he was funding.

Beth Osborne: So I think it’s really important to remember that that bill gets a lot of credit by waving a shiny object in the corner and keeping your eye off of the overall program that has been doing damage for decades. And I said that in 2021.

Sarah: Yes, you did say that in 2021. And I guess time has borne out your feelings about that. Like, you don’t think that you were wrong. [laughs]

Beth Osborne: I have the numbers to prove I was absolutely correct. We have the evidence to show exactly how much additional greenhouse gases are going into the air based on our investment strategy.

Sarah: That’s a great perspective to have that despite the much-lauded Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or IIJA, we still are going down, as you say, the same road. And it is a road.

Beth Osborne: Yeah. The Biden folks did a great job, marketing job for their supporters of saying, “We have invested historic amounts of money into transit,” and we just chose not to pay attention to the fact that for every dollar that went into the transit side, four dollars had to go into the highway side. So it was a historic amount of money for the stuff we didn’t like, too, except for the stuff we didn’t like was way more than the stuff we liked. And the entire movement seemed fine with that.

Sarah: Hmm.

Beth Osborne: Remarkable to me. [laughs] I have been shocked at how cheaply bought the movement is.

Sarah: So why do you think that is? I mean, you’re shocked, but do you have any theories as to why people were maybe complacent or eager to put a positive spin on this?

Beth Osborne: I mean, I can explain that from the perspective of the administration. They at least felt they had to put a good spin on one of their greatest accomplishments. I think more talented messaging would have resulted in people saying, “We got these good things. Congress, you know, required us to do these things we don’t much care about. And this is—I’m looking at the results that I don’t like. We should learn from this and not do this anymore.” But no, it had to be flawless, so the Biden and Buttigieg folks would brag about or try to either distract from or put a shiny veneer over things that were doing real generational damage.

Sarah: And one might extrapolate that to the entire Democratic Party, and the way it’s handled a lot of issues and really serious things over the last decade. I mean …

Beth Osborne: Absolutely right.

Sarah: Yeah. So with that huge caveat, what’s happening now is taking what was not a great situation to begin with and making it potentially dramatically, dramatically worse. I think, and I’m interested to hear if you think, and I think you might think this, that there might be some upsides to this—well, maybe not upsides, but that there might be some opportunities.

Beth Osborne: Yes.

Sarah: Okay. So—but let’s first talk about what is happening as far as we know. Maybe you could explain our new Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, whose background is a little bit of time in Congress and then a lot of time on television as a reality show contestant and then a Fox host. You know, not a similar background to our last Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, who was one of the highest-profile secretaries that the department has had in a long time.

Beth Osborne: Yeah.

Sarah: One of the few times that somebody who had a discernible political future in the party was given the DOT position. Sean Duffy is a very different kind of character. So he issued a memo right as soon as he got confirmed, a recision memo, right? That was talking about what the department was going to be seeking to withdraw funding for.

Beth Osborne: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Programs that were not aligned with the policy goals of this administration. And I believe that it’s sort of colloquially called the “Woke Rescission Memo.” Can you explain this memo and some of the things that it’s targeting?

Beth Osborne: Yeah. So to be clear, what’s going on right now, I have trouble comparing it to my policy issues with the IIJA. That again is part of a traditional style of governance that I think has been truly damaged by a statewide Democratic attitude of statewide elected Democrats just want to build things, and they don’t really seem to be concerned about whether or not those things do good or bad. And they tend to do bad. So that’s one issue. And then my concerns with the way the federal government runs that program and the opportunities lost under the Biden administration.

Beth Osborne: This is something utterly different. This is stretching presidential power, doing things, daring everyone to stop them, doing things in an indiscriminate manner that could very well harm the president’s priorities too. They’re just kind of doing stuff; it’s not particularly thoughtful or organized. You know, they’re firing people who protect our nuclear weapons and then having to hire them back, but realizing they deleted all their information so they can’t contact them. I mean, that’s not—that’s not the same thing. So it’s a different plane that we’re on right now.

Beth Osborne: But what is happening—and we have tried on our website to give people a bit of a TikTok to—we called it “unflooding the zone,” so that people could understand what’s going on. And basically there was an executive order at the presidential level telling all the agencies to look at federal spending, particularly looking at President Biden’s big winning legislation, IIJA and the IRA, and see whether or not that spending matches—I would like to say matches his priorities, but really, it was matches up with any of his red flags.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Beth Osborne: So it’s really about getting rid of the things that they find upsetting. And those things are often referred to as “woke,” which includes environmental justice, DEI, climate, those sorts of issues. So when Secretary Duffy took over, he put in place memos to implement that executive order and help people understand how to evaluate the programs, that they were supposed to identify whether or not the programs in any way do something to address, again, climate, greenhouse gas emissions, environmental justice—Justice40 was mentioned a bunch—racial equality, gender identity, those sorts of things.

Beth Osborne: And he also talked about particular policy objectives that they were putting in place. And the priorities they wanted that Secretary Duffy and the new Trump administration wanted to prioritize in transportation was user-pay model, benefit-cost analyses. They were looking at marriage rates, birth rates, things like that, but they didn’t define any of that, either. So they’ve been going through a process where they evaluate all spending on those priorities and anti priorities. And actually yesterday they were supposed to announce spending that they found to have “triggered” them.

Sarah: [laughs]

Beth Osborne: And we didn’t see it last night, but I think there have been some things that came out overnight, and we should see in the next few days some of those things. The big question is: Are they halting just new spending? Are they digging into grants that are already made? I’d say that’s likely. Grant agreements? Are they gonna undo grant agreements? That’s a possibility. Are they gonna try to claw back money that’s already been spent? Are they not gonna reimburse project sponsors that have already outlaid money? Are they gonna dig into individual projects paid for by formula grants, not just competitive grants? I mean, anything is possible at this point.

Beth Osborne: So we’re waiting to see what all of this actually means by them showing us through specific recisions or delays or whatever. So far, some of the things we have seen is they have stopped the Reconnecting Communities Institute, but I don’t know if that will restart. They did stop the Road to Zero Coalition, but they’re now working again. So they were reviewed and they’re back to working.

Sarah: Okay.

Beth Osborne: The Thriving Communities program is continuing as of now. So I don’t know how they’re going to apply this and how deeply into individual decisions and grants and programs they’re planning to go.

Sarah: But we don’t know. And of course, that uncertainty is in itself very destabilizing. And uncertainty costs money, among other things, because, you know, it makes it very hard for people to plan. You have a map on your website that looks at the entire nation, and looks at county by county, what some of the impacts of this could be. And I believe the total dollar number that you’ve identified of projects nationwide that could be affected is $20 billion, right? We’re talking about a huge amount of money. And I’d really urge people to go to your website, look at this map. It’s broken down really well. You can zoom in, find your own county and also who to contact, your representatives, advocacy opportunities there.

Sarah: But what I keep thinking about is state and local governments and their liabilities here. As you say, there can be projects that have started, contractors who are awaiting payment or who are waiting for the signal. And who gets left holding the bag there is my question in terms of, for instance, if a contractor decides to sue over breach of contract, who’s gonna be answerable for some of that stuff?

Beth Osborne: Yeah, these are really important questions. And like you said, even the uncertainty and delays can cause as much harm as canceling. So we’re hearing that folks who have gotten Safe Streets and Roads for All grants are seeing their reimbursement slowed down. You know, if you’re a small city or a nonprofit that is spending money because you have a contract with the federal government that says you’re owed that money back and then it doesn’t come, I mean, you might not be able to make payroll, you might not be able to pay your lease. I mean, these can have profound impacts even with just delays.

Beth Osborne: So I think that there’s a lot of fear around even just the inefficient implementation of the program, even if folks do at some point get around to allowing these programs to go forward. And the federal government has signed a contract. So if you are the contractor, you probably sue the project sponsor, who then brings the federal government into the suit because you have a contract with them that says you are guaranteed that funding. But a lot of people don’t realize that the federal transportation program, like most federal programs, it’s reimbursable. When you get a grant, they don’t put money in your account. You spend the money and you apply for reimbursement. Some people can—at the DOT level, state DOT levels can seek reimbursement every day if they want.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Beth Osborne: But the smaller you are, the more rare it is. You build up your expenses and you submit them all at once. And the smaller you are, the harder it is to wait for that money to come in. So it will generally impact lower-wealth communities, lower-capacity communities, rural communities, much more harshly than it will the bigger, wealthier communities that often the Trump administration wants to go after. Which is exactly my point is it is orchestrated, but it’s not orchestrated with policy outcomes in mind. It’s just this kind of tearing things down and then seeing what you have to patch back up quickly after the wall’s already been splintered.

Sarah: Yeah. And red states are actually some of the ones who have the most to lose, it looks like, from your map. I mean, a state like North Dakota, right?

Beth Osborne: Yeah. Throughout my career, I have often seen the Heritage Foundation type come into Republican administrations and they’re like, “Transit’s just for big cities, and we’re coming after transit.” And then you show them the list of transit agencies, and there’s nearing a thousand of them, and they’re overwhelmingly in smaller and rural communities. And they’re shocked every time, and they’re shocked every time to know that it’s actually rural small towns that want to re-establish the walkability of their main street and that businesses like having people walking around. And it’s not some liberal plot, it’s actually the most central concept of rural Americana.

Beth Osborne: Every single movie about rural America, going back to the beginning of movies, has that picture of the public square and the gazebo in the middle, and the big park and the county courthouse and the people walking all over the place and slow moving streets. Yeah, it’s just the thing that we always have done in rural America that we’re trying to recreate in urban America. And I think they just get out ahead of their skis because they want to make the big cities and the libs cry, and they don’t recognize that these are actually universal—universally sought after community amenities. Everybody likes their kids to be able to walk to school. Everybody likes being able to walk to a park. Everybody likes having fun things close by. But yeah, they get a little caught up in their inside the Beltway think-tank-y world and they forget what the real world is actually like.

Sarah: Speaking of inside the Beltway think-tank-y, while Sean Duffy doesn’t have a big policy resume, one of the people who’s awaiting confirmation, I believe, Steven Bradbury, who’s up for Deputy Secretary of Transportation, does have an extensive policy background. He is one of the architects of the transportation section of Project 2025, so his ideas about what our transportation system should look like, how it should be funded, who should get the money, are gonna be probably very influential. So I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about Steven Bradbury.

Beth Osborne: Yeah. And I do want to make clear that while people loved Secretary Buttigieg—and I did as well. In my private time, I supported his campaign for president and helped him write his transportation agenda. I mean, I’m a big fan of the way he thought. But he was not President of the United States. And I think people forget that if a secretary tries to do something that does not have the backing of the President of the United States, they are shown the door. And while Secretary Buttigieg, I think, might have been more aligned with my thinking on transportation, President Biden wasn’t.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Beth Osborne: When he was running for president, his transportation agenda was something we slammed. It was terrible. And that was the man who won. And if you are in the cabinet, you serve the president or you go home. And so yes, in his heart, Secretary Buttigieg might have been more with us, but that didn’t matter. The person we should have been paying attention to is the policies of the President of the United States. That is the truth here, too. I would not get too concerned about who Sean Duffy is or what his positions are because he works for the President of the United States, and those are the positions that matter. Now is he coming in with a history in this space that he might use to advocate internally? No, he’s not. But what secretary in a Trump administration is going to push hard on an agenda that the president is resistant to and keep their job?

Sarah: Right.

Beth Osborne: That’s not gonna happen. So yes, the secretaries matter. They do. They can bring a wealth of knowledge. I think Mr. Bradbury brings a definite point of view, and there are a lot of decisions that never come to the White House level, and he has the knowledge of how DOT works to find all those levers and work them.

Beth Osborne: But quite frankly, do we know what kind of program’s gonna be left after Elon Musk and DOGE is done with it? No. I don’t know how much he’s gonna have to work with when it’s all done. Having said all that, if you look at his history, he has a very strong opinion about a lot of the things we care about in transportation. He uses words like “local priorities versus federal priorities.” But it’s important to know when he says “local priorities,” he means non-high speed roadways. That’s what he means.

Beth Osborne: If you’re trying to slow down a road or make it more safe or build bike ped infrastructure or build transit, that’s a local priority. If, however, you are trying to expand one intersection in one community in one city, that’s a huge federal priority. Why? Because it’s a roadway and it’s an expansion and that means federal priority. There’s no actual analysis of how that’s gonna impact the federal economy or the movement of goods. No. Roads, federal priority; non roads, local priority. End of thinking, end of analysis.

Beth Osborne: So we’re gonna hear a lot more about that. We’re gonna hear this “user pays” concept, but it’s very important to understand what they mean, particularly Bradbury means by “user pays.” He means people who don’t pay the gas tax. So transit riders, even though sometimes they do pay the gas tax, and even though the gas tax doesn’t cover even the highway program alone, somehow the highway program is a user pays and nothing else. We pay fares on transit, but that’s not user pays. You know, when we try to get the drivers to truly pay the cost of their impact, like through tolling or through congestion pricing, well, that’s not okay. That’s not the user pay he means.

Sarah: Right.

Beth Osborne: So, you know, he’s bringing a very—not only a 1950s approach, but a sense that the new needs of the 1950s are the only needs and the only things we should be investing in. We should be building out a roadway network the way we approached it in 1956 with the original Highway Act. And we can build our way out of congestion, we just need to get some of those homes and those businesses out of the way.

Sarah: Yeah. So I want to circle back to something you mentioned briefly a few minutes ago, which was Secretary Duffy talking about prioritizing funding for places with higher birth rates and marriage rates. That is just a strange and chilling way of formulating policy priorities to me. And it sort of was one of those things that flew past in this whirlwind of news. And I think, you know, maybe we just were like, “Okay, let’s not think about that right now.” But what are the implications of that, and how—and you’ve talked a lot about how unusual this situation is and how unprecedented it is. How unusual is that? And what are the implications for funding if a scheme like that were to go through?

Beth Osborne: The question is whether or not we still have a co-equal branch of governance in Congress. So far, it appears not. It appears it’s mostly just a cheering section. But, you know, if they ever decide to stand up and say, “No, that’s not what we meant and we’re not in favor of this,” then that could be that.

Beth Osborne: However, there are certain ways that I could see how some of those issues might have something to do with transportation. So population growth might mean that you need to invest in a different way in a community than if you’re losing population. Now is birth rate the same thing as population growth? No, it is not. You have many places who are losing population but have a high birth rate. When those kids grow up, they leave because there’s no opportunity. You have a lot of places growing in population with a lower birth rate. So that’s not what they’re getting at.

Beth Osborne: I also don’t know if they have thought really hard about which communities come out ahead on that. You know, areas with above-average birth rates, there are a bunch of very red areas, but there’s also a bunch of very red areas that are below. I mean, poor West Virginia doesn’t have a shot under their regime, you know? And there are a bunch of very red states that have low birth rates. So that’s an interesting and odd decision. Same thing with marriage rates. You know, one of the places with the highest marriage rates in the country and lowest divorce rates? Washington, DC.

Sarah: Huh! Go figure.

Beth Osborne: Yeah. And if you look at, you know, places with lower birth rates, you know, you’re getting places like Florida.

Sarah: Hmm. Yeah.

Beth Osborne: They’re below average. Did they mean that? A lot of rural states have lower marriage rates. So I mean, my home state of Louisiana does not have a very high marriage rate. Ohio has a very low marriage rate. Are they coming for Ohio? It’s just I don’t think it’s thought through. I think they wrote a bunch of things down on paper that matter to them, but how it connects to transportation, God knows. And how they would implement it, how they would define it, how they would utilize it, you know, what if it’s an area that has high birth rate and low marriage rate, or low marriage rate and high birth? Like, I don’t know. I don’t. As someone who has implemented these programs, it’s trickier than writing a whole bunch of things down on paper. And so all I can tell you is from what I’ve seen, I’m not sure they know yet. And I will be very interested to see how they square some of these circles. I’ll give you just two more quick examples. They also had mask mandates.

Sarah: Right.

Beth Osborne: Okay. Everybody had a mask mandate at one point, and no one has one now. So how are they gonna implement that?

Sarah: Right.

Beth Osborne: Or vaccine mandates? Do you know how many states have a vaccine mandate? Fifty.

Sarah: [laughs]

Beth Osborne: So do they just mean COVID vaccines? I don’t think anybody has a COVID vaccine mandate. So I don’t see how you implement this. I think they just, again, flooded the zone with priorities. They want to let people know these are things that have upset us in the past and we don’t want them to upset us now. But how they get applied to these programs or if they will ever be applied to these programs, I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Sarah: But that’s a lot of the problem here is that when you make these ideological or quasi-ideological pronouncements, translating them into policy is a whole other thing that a lot of these people don’t seem to be prepared to do. I wanted to talk specifically about electric vehicles and the electric vehicle charging network. What are the implications for the EV transition? That was one of the core things that the Biden administration was pushing.

Beth Osborne: It does seem like they’re letting those projects that have already gotten grant agreements and commitments go forward. But if they slow the deployment of EV infrastructure and particularly charging stations, it’s gonna be another reason why people are reticent to invest in an EV. It gives people comfort to know that you can refuel wherever you are.

Beth Osborne: Now the way a lot of the law was written, states have said they found it very hard to implement the notion that charging should be on the highways. I don’t go out to the highways to refuel my car now. I don’t want to have to go out to the highway to refuel my car later. So there are provisions in the law that not only made it tricky, but the results won’t be perfect. They won’t be great. I think that’s something that the Biden administration should have tried to adjust immediately.

Beth Osborne: The other thing is when the Biden administration negotiated the IIJA for the programs they loved, they built them the way they thought programs should be. So they had robust planning processes that took years before anything could be built, which took up all of those four years, which makes it so easy to unravel. The programs doing damage, doing the things that they claim to not be supportive of—though they cut plenty of ribbons on those, too—they didn’t have to go through that. So they kept going forward very quickly. And we were helping to accelerate some of them while the stuff we cared about, we were spending time in planning.

Beth Osborne: Now in an ideal world, everything is beautifully planned out, but here we are now with a lot of plans and a lot of, you know, where I come from, fixin’ to do. We want to put a lot of these in place, and if we’re allowed to go forward, they’re now ready to go. But those were key years. Those key years reduced people’s willingness to buy electric cars earlier on, which would have been important for the environment, and it also made it easy to back the program up.

Beth Osborne: And this is just something we need to keep in mind going forward. If we do something according to an ideal that makes it go slowly, we may not end up getting anything done at all. I do expect that after a lot of pain and difficulty, a good chunk of this will go forward. I think that a lot of the auto manufacturers will be calling for it because they have invested heavily in building these cars, and they’re looking at paying tariffs, they’re looking at all kinds of other things. They’re going to need some support for their products. But first, there’s gonna be a lot of communications to President Trump’s base that they took a chunk out of EV movement and EVs in general, and it’s gonna make everything slower and much more expensive in the name of efficiency.

Sarah: Right. Of course. So Beth, I’ve got two questions for you.

Beth Osborne: Only two?

Sarah: Well, I mean …

Beth Osborne: That’s amazing.

Sarah: But two really crucial ones, I think. The first is you talked about messaging earlier, and what effective messaging could be. I’m wondering what you think would be effective messaging for people at the governmental level, you know, people who are in DOTs, people who are elected officials, people who have some power and control over various levers of government. I know you’ve got a spreadsheet going that kind of goes with that map in which you’re encouraging people who are within your coalition to identify what programs that they’re involved with are at risk and how to potentially defend them. But what is the messaging that needs to happen at the local and state level to try to preserve some of these programs that we all care about?

Beth Osborne: Yeah, it’s a really important question. So I’m gonna say a whole bunch of other things first, but I’m gonna answer the question. One is we need to stop as a movement supporting new small programs to fix the damage that is continuing to be created by much bigger programs. We basically created a nice, neat box of separate programs that could just be set on fire.

Sarah: Hmm.

Beth Osborne: And the majority of the program—and I mean by hundreds of times—Reconnecting Communities, is $1 billion. The overall highway program is $55 billion this year. The notion that that was the way you fix this was ridiculous. And it wasn’t—look, I know everyone says, “Well, it’s how you negotiate for change. And that’s a floor.” No, it’s not. It’s a ceiling. We did this with transportation enhancements back in 1991 with ISTEA. It’s been capped. It’s now called Transportation Alternatives, but about 10 years ago it was slashed. So it wasn’t even maintained; it didn’t even grow with the program. We need to stop that thinking. That is how we have been beaten for 30 years, and we either grow up or give up. This is ridiculous.

Beth Osborne: And this is my sixth reauthorization. I’ve watched it happen over and over and over again, and at some point, if you are willing to sell out for so little, you’re part of the problem. So I’m gonna say that up front. Stop creating little programs to do good that is gonna be undermined by much bigger programs that are just creating—creating issues you’re gonna have to fix with your little program in 20 years when you finally get to it. It’s ridiculous. So that’s one thing.

Beth Osborne: Two is you need to understand that a program that is trust funded like the highway and transit programs—remember they are paid for with 18.4 cents per gallon gas tax and a 24.4 cents per gallon diesel tax, and some tire taxes and then a whole bunch of deficit spending. But they’re not part of the annual appropriations process. That means if you are on Capitol Hill, maybe you filled a vacancy and you came into office in January, 2022 after the IIJA, we are likely to get to reauthorization sometime in maybe 2027. You can be in office for seven years and leave and have never talked about this program.

Beth Osborne: If you are a staffer, the average legislative assistant is in their position for two years. One office can go through three to four of them before these issues come up again. So as a constituent, you need to understand they are responding to the votes coming up now, not in seven years. You are the only person who even knows there’s something they need to know. So you need to be in touch all of the time. You do not need to come to Washington DC; you can visit with them in their offices. You don’t even have to ask for anything, You just need to let them know that you’re working on this project and it’s important for these reasons, and it’s gonna support these objectives and these people, and it is in an uncertain position. Maybe your only question is, “I need you to be with me to follow what’s going on and make sure it’s protected.”

Beth Osborne: But they’re not—they’re not sitting in their office with a list of every single thing being built in their district. They don’t know. So if you’re not showing up and telling them, then you’re basically letting them know through your silence that you don’t care about your project. I can tell you in every non-transportation issue, they’re being flooded with calls. I have it on good authority that they’re not being flooded by people in transportation, which if you’re being flooded by people who are worried about their schools and health care and everything else, what you’ve heard by the transportation people’s silence is that’s where we can cut. There’s not gonna be any response.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s really struck me how—you know, I’ve been kind of waiting for transportation’s turn in the mainstream headlines or in sort of the general discourse.

Beth Osborne: That’s never happening.

Sarah: It’s not gonna happen. [laughs] I know. I’ve been waiting a long time.

Beth Osborne: We didn’t talk about transportation policy during the IIJA. There is no engagement on that. So that’s never gonna occur. People need to speak up, they also need to be there. It needs to be constant. Again, the 26-year-old staffer you’re gonna talk to in that House office is going to be replaced in 18 months because they’re gonna get a promotion or they’re gonna move on. You need to talk to their replacement. You need to be in constant conversation. And you need to be talking to your local officials and your state officials. Your state legislator doesn’t know about your project because it’s federally funded, but they do need to know that if the federal funding is taken away, you’re gonna be coming to the state to fix the problem.

Beth Osborne: And right now a lot of state DOTs think their formula dollars will be okay, and therefore at the state level there’s nothing to worry about. Well, all of those folks that have gotten funding directly from the feds need to make clear to their governors and their state legislators and their DOTs that no, in fact, they are going to then expect their state to help fix this problem, and therefore your problem is also their problem. So letting people know what’s going on with your project, why it’s important and why it needs to be protected and how everyone has a role to play in that is going to be extraordinarily important.

Beth Osborne: And you should be talking to your press too. Your press can only cover what people are talking about. They know exactly who to call about Medicaid, and how cuts to Medicaid is gonna impact doctors and hospitals, and how cuts to Head Start is gonna impact pre K-programs. But they don’t have a list. They may not know to come to my site and find the list of all the projects that are gonna be impacted in their community. You have to let them know if we want there to be those headlines.

Sarah: Right. And “you” being everyone from mayors and state DOT people and city DOT people, right down to the grassroots advocates and the general public, right?

Beth Osborne: Absolutely. You know, if there’s some project to fix, you know, a dangerous roadway in your neighborhood, and you were a part of that event to announce the award, you need answers on why that award’s going away. You know, all of those elected officials that showed up for that announcement, they should be showing up for an announcement about how the project’s going away now.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Beth Osborne: And maybe if you’re having that event, they engage to say, “No, no, no. I’m going to be here to protect that project.” But look, let’s give them all a little bit of credit here. They are all flooded with information, too. They are trying to figure out how to manage this onslaught of information just like we are. And so part of what we need to do is be supportive of those who are dealing with incoming from all directions, and be the holder information for the elected officials and their staff, so that instead of having to have everything in their heads, they just know to have you on speed dial and they can call you for the information that they need at that moment they need the information. The only way that happens is if they know who you are and they know you’re there to support them.

Sarah: So it sounds like some pretty basic organizing efforts need to be reinforced and redoubled. And I think your point about the onslaught of information is so germane because just preparing for this interview, I felt so overwhelmed by the amount of information that I was occasionally paralyzed. You know, well, how am I gonna frame this? How am I gonna start this?

Beth Osborne: [laughs]

Sarah: And so, you know, I just think that it’s so important for people to maybe think small in some ways, right? And to know about those specific projects, the specific impacts, and to really be building that infrastructure from the ground up so that yeah, you can deliver a little package of advocacy to people who are higher up and don’t have the bandwidth or motivation to get all that information themselves.

Beth Osborne: That’s really well put. And to understand that they are at the edge of their bandwidth as well. So being there to be a resource and be helpful, but also, you know, just tapping them on their shoulder and reminding them that you’re there and your project matters, the pressure and the—coupled with the support will be extremely important to protecting the things that you care about.

Beth Osborne: I will also say there’s no point in responding to everything. So, you know, I could do a report or a blog post on this marriage rate thing. They’re gonna have to actually explain to me where that might truly occur before I bother. Right now, I think what’s really important is just getting answers about the projects we care about. Whatever project you care about in your community that you’ve been working on, that you’re waiting for, you need answers. And just by asking that question to anyone with any kind of authority or power, it’s going to strengthen your hand because now they feel on the hook for that answer and they need to help you get it. So let’s just stay in touch with folks.

Beth Osborne: And also, I just really hope when we get to the next reauthorization, we are willing to call for real changes to the program and not settle for the crumbs that are left behind once all the traditional folks get their piece, so that our stuff isn’t just separated into discretionary, “easily cut.” For those that are just listening, I have the air quotes going. The last-in, first-out program.

Sarah: Right.

Beth Osborne: If we want safe roads, you don’t get safe roads by creating a $1-billion safe roads program. You create safe roads by requiring every road built with every dollar to be safe. That’s how it’s done. And it’s time to move into that conversation.

Sarah: When I asked earlier about, like, are there any upsides to this—”upside” is probably the wrong word, but opportunities perhaps for rethinking the way that we make our arguments and the framing that we put on them. And I just, to that end, want to sort of circle back and just talk about why are these things important to us. That these are not numbers, these are not acronyms and cute names for programs and all of that. When we talk about these programs and these initiatives, they’re designed, and if they’re properly implemented, they have the capacity and the capability to radically improve people’s lives, to extend their life expectancy, to make their lives healthier, more community oriented, to make it easier to get health care and education and access to job opportunities, and to have more time with your family, more time to focus on the things that you want in a clean, pleasant environment. That’s what all of this is for. And so I guess, like, I just want to check in and say, like, why is this important? Why is this important for us to be doing this work?

Beth Osborne: Yeah, the transportation system really dictates our ability to do everything. It has an impact on—if you have a home, on your property value. It can be positive or negative. It has an impact on your freedom. You know, how many places can you get to, particularly when things aren’t going well. You know, maybe your car broke down or like right now, when my husband’s on travel and I have to take care of the kids, you know, how much freedom does the system offer me to get my kids around and me to work and those sorts of things? You know, how safe are my kids when they’re coming home from school on their own?

Beth Osborne: How much the transportation system can impact what you breathe, the cleanliness of your water, the availability of water, the extent to which your home might flood. I grew up in New Orleans, and my grandparents lived in a house where—we call it a neutral ground; everybody else calls it a median, where a canal in the neutral ground had been filled, and so all the water ran into people’s homes. That was a transportation infrastructure project.

Sarah: Right.

Beth Osborne: Everything about this system can impact our lives for good and for bad, so making sure that the incentives and the standards are aligned with doing good and not with doing what’s always been done. We should be iterating there should be rewards for good performance. And our program actually uses bad performance as an excuse to get more money. Our roads and bridges aren’t being repaired by us who get the money, so we need more money.

Beth Osborne: We need to undo that. We do have an opportunity. We are heading towards, theoretically, the expiration of the IIJA at the end of this Congress, so September 30, 2026. In reality, we never make the deadline.

Sarah: No.

Beth Osborne: We’re always a minimum over a year late, and we’ve been three years late. We’re gonna be at least a year late. And the thing is we’re facing the biggest funding cliff we’ve ever faced. And one of the problems with creating both chaos and targeting groups you don’t like like the nominee for Deputy Secretary of USDOT would like to do, is when you’re heading for a funding cliff, you really want your tent to be as big as possible. You want your coalition to be big and strong, because to fix a funding cliff, you need to either raise taxes, cut spending, or deficit spend. And all of this requires serious political cover, and that cover only works when you’ve got a broad coalition.

Beth Osborne: So the notion that first we’re gonna toss everybody out of the tent and then we’re gonna ask for their help to cover our programs is just foolish politics, and it never works. So people should know that we’re bringing, you know, someplace in the mid-$40 billions in federal taxes for transportation through the gas tax, diesel tax, tire taxes, such things. But by the time we hit this funding cliff, the highway program alone will be in the mid-$60 billions. So you can cut all of transit, all of rail, every discretionary grant program, and all of the safety programs and air quality programs and all of that, and still we don’t have enough money to maintain the 1950s-style highway program.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Beth Osborne: That’s opportunity, but not if we’re willing to support this program with just a little piece.

Sarah: Right.

Beth Osborne: If we are willing to say, “You know what? After spending $1.5 trillion since ISTEA, we have the most dangerous roads in the industrialized world—by a lot. We have longer commutes than ever, more congestion in the largest hundred communities in the country, including in communities that have lost population. They have more congestion. We’re increasing the amount of emissions unless the auto manufacturers fix it for us. Why would we want to spend another $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years on this?”

Beth Osborne: Maybe we stop doing damage for a while, and take a beat and talk about what to rebuild. If we’re willing to take a position like that, we could wildly change this program. We could halt the damage and we could wildly change this program. And we have all the arguments on our side because what we’re talking about is good for the economy writ large, it’s good for local businesses, it’s good for the personal economy because it saves people money, it gives them access to more things, gives them a higher quality of life, gives people who are more vulnerable, like younger people, older people, people who might not be as physically mobile, people who just fall on hard times, gives them access to more opportunity, more benefits, more quality of life, more longevity by being able to move through their communities.

Beth Osborne: We can talk about this in terms of every political stripe, and we need to flex those muscles and be good at talking about why it’s good governance, why it’s good for the local city budgets, why it’s good for people’s budgets and things like that. But we also need to lose our tolerance for doing massive damage just because we get a few projects that make us feel good.

Sarah: Well, that’s a perfect place to end it. Thank you so much, Beth Osborne. This has been a really enlightening conversation. I can’t say I understand everything. [laughs]

Beth Osborne: I don’t either. Good news, nobody does! [laughs]

Sarah: But I do understand a lot more than I did before. We’re gonna put links in the show notes to all of your amazing data and data visualizations and blog posts, and people can start to wrap their minds around some of this and figure out what role they want to play in making this better.

Beth Osborne: Well, and we have a Reauthorization 101 document for people who don’t understand this process so that you can figure out where to start. And if anyone has any questions, they should feel free to reach out to us. We do want to be a resource for folks, so please let us know how we can help. And thank you so much for inviting me on today.

Sarah: So that’s it for today’s show. Once again, we’re gonna put links to Transportation for America’s maps and data and blog posts and all that good stuff in the show notes. It’s a huge resource for people who are interested in transportation and advocating at the local, state and federal level for the things that we know are necessary. So please check it out. You heard what a fighter Beth Osborne is and T4A is a great advocacy organization that you should be familiar with if you’re not already.

Sarah: We’d like to remind you that we are on Patreon at Patreon.com/thewaroncarspod. We are an independently-produced podcast. Your support is essential to us to help keep us going and growing. Sign up, and you’ll get access to ad-free versions of regular episodes, exclusive bonus episodes, early invites to live shows, merch discounts and more. Plus we’ll send you stickers and a handwritten note. Again, that’s Patreon.com/thewaroncarspod.

Sarah: And another reminder: We do have a live show coming up in Minneapolis on Thursday, April 24 at the Cedar Cultural Center. That’s presented by Our Streets, a really great local advocacy organization that’s doing exactly the kind of work that Beth is talking about, getting these issues in front of local and state elected officials, and advocating fiercely for better streets in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. We’ll have a link in the show notes if you want to buy tickets for that.

Sarah: The War on Cars is supported in part by the Helen and William Mazer Foundation.

Sarah: A big thanks to everyone who supports us on Patreon, including our top contributors, Charley Gee of Human Powered Law in Portland, Oregon, Mark Hedlund and Virginia Baker.

Sarah: Also, a reminder: Through the end of February, you can get 15 percent off on Cleverhood products. Go to Cleverhood.com/thewaroncars and you’ll get a 15 percent discount with the discount code DESIGNEDWITHLOVE.

Sarah: This episode was edited by Ali Lemer. It was recorded by Josh Wilcox at the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio. Our theme music is by Nathaniel Goodyear. Transcripts are by Russell Gregg. I’m Sarah Goodyear, and on behalf of my co-host Doug Gordon, this is The War on Cars.