PA Public Transit Projects

from the inbox:

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced that $13.4 million in Recovery Act funds will go to the five public transportation providers in Pennsylvania for transit improvements.

“By quickly moving federal dollars to the cities and towns across the country, we are putting people back to work now and ensuring that our nation will have reliable and efficient transit system for generations to come,” said Secretary LaHood.

The following grants were awarded:

· Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority in Allentown: $7.7 million to fund 17 replacement vans, three 21-foot vans, two 40-foot and three 35-foot hybrid electric buses, and the purchase and installation of a real-time passenger information and AVL system. The grant will also fund pre-fabricated shelters and equipment, bus stop signage, and a state-of-the-art bus maintenance, bus storage, and administration facility at LANTA’s Allentown Operating Headquarters.

· Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority: $1.9 million to purchase six low-floor, 40-foot replacement transit buses with enhanced security measures.

· Transportation and Motor Buses for Public Use Authority in Altoona: $1.5 million to complete major renovations at AMTRAN’s main facility buildings that will include an on-site conference room and training center as well as prepare a site for future joint development use.

· County of Fayette: $923,540 for engineering/design and construction of a transit service center, bus transfer/park and ride facility, and vehicle storage area.

· Cambria County Transit Authority in Johnstown: $1.3 million to renovate the original concrete deck floor of the Transit Center located in downtown Johnstown and to purchase one accessible, 35-foot hybrid-electric bus.

Since President Obama signed ARRA into law on Feb. 17, 2009, 343 grants totaling $3.2 billion have been made available for transit improvements throughout the nation.


“These funds are creating jobs now while investing in the future of our transit systems,” said Administrator Peter Rogoff of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). “The public’s demand for transit service continues to grow, and these dollars will help meet that need.”

Overall, the U.S. Department of Transportation has made $48.1 billion available for highway, road, shipyard, bridge and airport construction and repairs nationwide, including $8.4 billion for transit capital and operating improvements. Currently, about 6,000 transportation projects across the country have been approved.

An Environmental Miscellany

In sorting through the “to be blogged about” pile I noted these three environmental items and in the interest of efficiency and organization am putting them in one place.

The June 29th issue of the New Yorker has a long profile of Jim Hansen, NASA’s climate expert and director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. This is the guy who created a climate model 30 years ago and has been accurately predicted climate change since then. He is THE climate change guy. According to the article he and his wife own a house in Bucks County where they often spend their weekends.

Hansen might have taken notice of Pennsylvania HB 80 and this July 2nd press release from Bucks County Rep. Steve Santarsiero (D-31):

State Rep. Steven J. Santarsiero, D-Bucks, today successfully amended clean-energy legislation in an effort to reduce carbon emissions from power plants at no additional cost to electric utility ratepayers.

Several environmental advocacy groups, including PennEnvironment, Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter, Pennsylvania Clean Water Action and Clean Air Council, endorse the language offered by Santarsiero that would remove incentives for coal plants that do not store carbon pollution.

"House Bill 80 advances carbon capture and sequestration technologies, but does so in a way that could incentivize the construction of new coal-fired power plants that never end up sequestering their pollution -- a huge threat to our efforts to combat global warming," said Nathan Willcox, energy and clean air advocate for PennEnvironment.

"Representative Santarsiero is addressing this issue in a way that helps the economy as well as the environment. PennEnvironment applauds the representative for his critical efforts on this legislation," Willcox said.

"Sequestering carbon pollution from coal power plants is a good goal, but we were amazed that legislation was being considered that would result in new coal plants being built, but without requiring sequestration," said Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania state director for Clean Water Action. "Representative Santarsiero should be applauded for his efforts to get those requirements into House Bill 80. His leadership has been essential to ensuring that we move to a clean energy economy."

The bill Santarsiero amended, H.B. 80, would increase Tier I requirements in Pennsylvania's Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards to 20 percent by 2026. Tier I requirements are the proportion of electricity that electric distribution companies must purchase from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy.

It also would add incentives for new and existing coal-fired power plants that conduct carbon capture and sequestration, which Santarsiero said would prevent the harmful gas from being released into the atmosphere.

Under the language Santarsiero is proposing, coal plants that do not use CCS would not receive alternative energy tax credits in excess of the cost of the carbon dioxide capture equipment installed at the plants.

"With the language I authored, coal-fired energy plants would not be eligible for certain incentives unless they store the carbon dioxide they generate," Santarsiero said.

Santarsiero amended the bill before it was recommitted to the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee for further review.

And in related news from the irony department, we find in the June 29th Wall Street Journal, “Valero harnesses wind energy to fuel it’s oil-refining process,” by Ana Campoy. Yes, that headline is correct, the Texas company has installed 33 windmills so it can develop its own power source and avoid fluctuating electricity prices and make the oil refinery more economical. It is, indeed, a strange world.

Sad News

Capitol Ideas reports this morning that the 2 year old son of State Rep. Bryan Lentz and his wife died yesterday. Please keep the family in your thoughts and prayers. CI notes:

Donations, in lieu of flowers, may be sent to:

The Joseph Lentz Fund for Pediatric Brain Cancer Research
The Wannamaker Building
100 Penn Square East, 8th Floor, Suite 8050
Philadelphia, Pa., 19107

Shapiro and Petri on PCN Talking Budget

State Reps Josh Shapiro (D-153) and Scott Petri (R-178) were on the PC Call-In Show on June 29th to discuss the state budget. I taped it and watched it later. These are rough notes from the show, and not presented as a transcript. As usual, my apologies in advance for any errors or misconceptions. Any numbers presented here should especially be double checked. At present you can watch the show via the pcn website (www.pcntv.com). As for tie notes, Shapiro’s tie was blue, Petri’s burgundy, provided the color on my tv was accurate. Sometimes it isn’t.


Host: Francine Schertzer

Our guests this evening are Scott Petri and Josh Shapiro

JS: we continue to talk a lot and we continue to sharpen our pencils and figure out where our bottom line points are. The important part is getting a good budget passed. Disappointed it won’t be done tomorrow but want to get it done quickly.

SP: discharge motions called, might be necessary, to bring a bill out of committee to force a vote on it.

FS; discharge resolution. How does that work

SP: we haven’t done it for a budget since I’ve been in office sine 2002. 25 members standup and say they want a discharge resolution. The idea is that we need to have a vehicle, a bill to discuss. We are both on committee and spend months discussing the governor’s budget. Here’s the interesting posture, neither of those bills (gov and senate) will ultimately be budget. Senate bill 850 currently out of balance by somewhere around $400 million so there is no bill out there that is constitutionally sufficient to meet the mandates where we are to where we need to be

JS: Every year the gov presents his budget in Feb then the legislature has months to get together in the appropriations committee and we vote in June or July but now less revenue has come in than we expected. Now we have shortfall. How do we work our priorities? We find ourselves having to pare back in meeting the needs of Pennsylvanians. Getting 4 caucuses and governor together to reach an accord under the specter of $3.2 b shortfall. Where do you cut or raise taxes to bring in new revenue

Fs: why no bill on house floor yet?

JS: State Rep Dwight Evans [chair of appropriations committee] doing a great job in giving us the knowledge to make a sound judgment. As to the process I’ll leave that to the chairman. He will bring a bill forward when in has a chance of passing. Find areas of consensus

SP: I echo a lot of what JS has said. It is very interesting. We actually have a very complicated layer. In 2006 we spend around 26B dollars. We have to have a balanced budget. Think about being the person that has the job of projecting the revenue we get this year. Who know. We may pick a number and it may be more revenue than we receive. We have a number from last year. We have proposals and then federal stimulus.

FS: Gov met with legislators what being discussed?

JS: what everyone is trying to do is reach a consenus on number. If priorities exceed revenue what do you cut or raise. In discussions leaders come and meet with us. We discuss.

FS: what number are you comfortable with?

SP: gives a number but worried about revenue. What are rules regarding federal stimulus. Can we spend some of the money earmarked for special education, usually for one time items, for continuing programs and then what happens when fed money gone? If school districts don’t know what money can be spent for, they are in a quandary. How apart are we? Fathoms. Are we going to have tax increases, income tax or sales, only forms of revenue that can generate the kind of money we need

JS: We want to look at responsible spending. Continue to make investment sin public education, health care, long term investments, grow our way out of this.

Caller: cell phones, banning use of hand held cell phones while driving, tractor trailers taxed to drive on highways, why not tax cars by weight as heavier cars use more highways.

JS: working hard on cell phone / texting ban. Last vote came up 3 votes short. As for weight, do require additional licensing, etc on overweight or extra large vehicles

SP: voted with him on cell phone ban and for distracted driver version. Nationally we are going to change the way we fund highways. Highway contactors would like to see gas tax. Less and less money from feds, need new methodologies for highway money. For this year we will spend about same amount as last year but much of that is stimulus. Contractors are big employers. Toll roads a possibility.

Caller: state employee. Went through this last year. Tagged as essential employee. Worried about not being paid.

SP: also concerned. If budget debate is protracted there won’t be monies for nonessential employees. Gov said he wouldn’t furlough workers. At some point state workers won’t be able to get paid and impact on people not showing up for work

JS: we know state workers work hard, unfortunately state employees end up being pawns. Partisan back and forth. Revenues going down and change during negotiations. We want the important work you do to continue.

SP: this isn’t about winners and losers but losers and bigger losers. Some people say we can cut out way out of it but there are consequences of that. We can’t know all the pain that will occur from cuts. Repercussions to our constituents.

FS: question on funding

JS: people probably won’t begin to see a difference until a few weeks and then services people depend on will start to slow or freeze.

Caller: on social security. How about no more raises for you and no more perks. Our mayor in Scranton is spending money to build a treehouse. Stop tax breaks for businesses, etc.

JS: Caller believes government isn’t working for her. Legislators COLAs can’t be turned back but JS donated the COLA money. Bigger issue is sense that govt isn’t working for you. Make sure cuts as compassionate and careful as they can be. We need to think about folks like you when making cuts. Efforts to reform h’burg.

SP: house has eliminated about 30M in cost of running the house and 10M in senate. General govt operations will receive a 12% cut if not deeper. Significant cuts. KOZs and the like. Look at Ireland, had an economic resurgence and still feeling it, copied our tax policy of the 1940s and 1950s.

Caller: is this budget going to affect people in low income housing and medical card. Diabetic.

SP: I don’t think so. That isn’t an area where we will see substantial cuts. The welfare system we have was designed for people like our caller. It’s a security net. Prioritize essential govt services. Usually health and safety. You will probably see substantial cuts in discretionary spending such as museum programs, lupus, cancer research. You may see no funding for a year or so and there are consequences for that. I chair the life sciences caucus and many constituents work in that area. There will be consequences.

JS: state will continue to cover areas of care. Should take care of the least and the last and the lost. With recession and more people in trouble this is eating up more and more of budget. Discretionary money being eaten up by those costs. At the end of the day how much is left over for discretionary spending.

Fs: wams [walking around money]

JS: we should not raise taxes to cover earmarks, wams, discretionary spending. If we are going to raise taxes it should be for people like caller. Lots and lots of discretionary fuding, local firehouse, sports teams, but we should not be raising taxes just to pay for wams.

SP: items in there that are traditionally called wams but not really wams, like clean water fund. Water contamination is essential but technically discretionary money. Can see that fund not being available for a year or two but there are consequences. All levels of govt are out of control for spending. Maybe we need to demonstrate to people that we need to curtail spending but they may have to feel some of the pain related to that. People tell him they want state parks close but not theirs.

Caller: look at what is being abused in what is being cut. Need time to transition as programs are being cut.

SP: agree that just like at home can’t adjust spending quickly. Long way out of this.

JS: technically we are required to pass a budget for one year at a time. Need to be responsible for how we program our dollars. We have to be a little careful about making cuts today and see what pain is and then adjust next year. It is naïve to say there won’t be any pain but we need to be careful.

Caller: federal employee. See pa cars leaving from residence or used for personal uses.

SP: people with state cars keep a log with personal uses noted, and those expenses not taken out. All personal mileage must be paid personally.

Caller: prisoners get paid and corrections officers don’t?

SP: not sure which issue he is speaking of. Say a report but am not sure of the details.

Caller: elected officials lost touch with reality

SP: we’re watching the monthly revenues each month. There is no way in our economy that anyone can say what deficit will be. Prefer to take most conservative approach and have excess money in rainy day approach. Revenues around 26.2B.

Fs: governor mentions tax increase

JS: Rep. Kotik (D-45)? And blue dogs expressing views. What is best product to put out for vote on budget

SP: with numbers we have .5 % would not do the job, would still have to cut 1.5B out. If the shortfall is 3.2, and have tax increase, still have to cut 1.5B. how do you raise taxes to that degree in this economy. .5% PIT puts a lot of people out of work.

Caller: watching dcnr hearings, says 36 million visitors to state parks, people not allowed to talk at public meetings.

JS: there’s a lot to unpack in that call. There’s frustration with waste and abuse in h’burg. Need to make sure state funds are reinvested in taxpayers.

SP: there isn’t a line item for waste and abuse that can easily be cut. We can try to identify it. Don’t want to see people go through pain. Until people see that we have disciplined our own house they will continue to see abuse.

Fs: gov made additional cuts

JS: just brings gov’s proposed budget down to revenue number. A lot of pain in state related colleges and universities. People audit books in legislature. There is a $200M reserve in legislature. This should be reinvested in people of Pennsylvania. Important step.

SP: it helps but it doesn’t bring us closer. Choices the gov has made that not everyone agrees with. In gov’s budget sate related colleges do worse than senate version.

Caller: Marcellus shale. Doesn’t want to see natural gas drilling on state lands. Environmental water disaster

JS: we have an extraordinary amount of natural gas reserves in marcellus shale. Companies go to private landowners and ask if they can drill on their land. Working with Dept / Environmental Protection to make sure being done correctly. Tax would bring in around 170M and more next year. People coming in and using our land and water

SP: state park land. We can really take our time and should to make sure we understand the science behind this. One standard for state lands. Make sure we don’t contaminate ground water.

Caller: article in paper on casino spending

JS: this is why we need campaign finance reform. Wants to see caps in state similar to feds. Rule that you can’t put out no bid contract to someone who donated.

Closing:

SP: I think it might be a week before we go back to school. Could go all the way through August.

JS: hope that it doesn’t. at the end of the day people will come together. Want to continue to see us sharpen out pencils. See what works and what doesn’t. it has to be done in a way that everyone comes together.

A Few Specter News Notes

Pennsylvania’s junior Democrat in the Senate has been in the news lately, in places you might not have noted, so here’s a quick round up:

“Lawmakers’ travel reports understate true cost,” by Brody Mullins and T. W. Farnam, Wall Street Journal July 3-5, focused on Specter, as an example of what reports do and do not reveal. Here’s an excerpt:

On Christmas Day, Sen. Arlen Specter flew to Europe and the Middle East for 11 days of meetings with government officials.

The travel-disclosure form the Pennsylvania Democrat filed for the trip reported the seven-country tour with his wife, an aide, and two military officials on a private military jet cost $571 a person, or a total of about $2,500.

The real cost was far higher, in excess of $70,000, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.

We also learn that “Specter pays for his wife’s share of accommodations out of his own pocket” and that Specter spent less on food and accommodations than his aide did.

Next up, from the June 29th Roll Call, “Colleagues Help Fill Specter’s Coffers,” by Shira Toeplitz. We find out that:

Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) has received about $70,000 so far from his Democratic colleagues in the Senate since he announced he was switching parties in April, according to a source familiar with the donations.

And last, but not least, the latest issue of Politics Magazine has an interview with Specter’s campaign manager, Chris Nichols. Interesting stuff. He notes that he is a GOP consultant whose client became a Democrat; he did not sign up a Democratic client. When asked about Sestak he notes that in 2006 the current congressman benefited from having Rendell, et al, clear the path. Behind a subscription wall (and you can't copy and paste from the online zinio version) so you'll have to find a copy and read for yourself.

Braddock Mayor Fetterman on C-Span Tomorrow

From the inbox:

C-SPAN Washington Journal Summary
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
8:30-9:00 AM JOHN FETTERMAN
Mayor of Braddock, PA (D)

Mayor Braddock will discuss his upcoming testimony before the Senate Committee hearing on "Moving America toward a Clean Energy Economy and Reducing Global Warming Pollution: Legislative Tools."

Specifically, he will discuss the impact that a commitment to clean energy will have on Braddock, PA, where old steel mills can be repurposed to manufacture wind turbines, as well as "carbon sequestering" and the need for further research.

Debt-Related Garnishing = Bankruptcy

In an AP story by Mike Baker, "Bankruptcies low in states that don't seize wages," the writer notes:

States that allow debt collectors to seize consumers' wages have sharply higher bankruptcy rates than neighboring states that prohibit or strictly limit the practice, an Associated Press analysis has found.

Pennsylvania features positively in the article:

While bankruptcy rates vary for many reasons, the five states that prohibit or strongly limit wage seizures — North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Florida and Texas — all have drastically lower rates than their neighbors, with particularly striking differences along borders, where economic conditions are similar but bankruptcy rates are not.

In our fair commonwealth wages can be garnished for child support and unpaid taxes but not for consumer debt.

Interesting.

A Few Consultant Sign-Ons

I've been reading the Campaign Insider blog and it has a "sign ons" section which lists which candidates have signed what consultants. Most of this has been reported elsewhere, but just in case, here's the PA notes from June:

Tom Knox's campaign for governor has signed Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates for Opinion Research

Doug Pike, a former Philadelphia Inquirer editorial writer, has brought Neil Oxman on board as an adviser. Oxman, along with former Politics columnist Doc Sweitzer, co-founded the Campaign Group, which will produce Pike's television and radio ads. Pike is challenging Republican Rep. Jim Gerlach in Pennsylvania's 6th District.

Sen. Arlen Specter, whose April party-switch led to some fall out within his entourage of consultants, is now beginning to sort out his new hires. He's brought Jeff Pollack, president of Global Strategy Group, on board as his pollster and hired Mark Mellman, president and CEO of the Mellman Group, as an adviser.

Special Education Update

On Wednesday the House Education Committee approved HB704. More on that below. If you are wondering why special education is important, read "What will happen to Harold?," by Steve Volk in the March 2009 issue of Philadelphia Magazine. The boy in the article faces a number of obstacles. If he doesn't overcome at least some of them his path is set. He may or may not be one of the kids who would be served by special education, but if so the money spent now is far less than what we will spend in the juvenile justice system a few years from now and the criminal justice system further down the road.

There are kids from stable homes in good neighborhoods who don't quite fit the mold of traditional education, or maybe they just need a little fine tuning or to learn some educational coping skills. Early intervention, like an ounce of prevention, is worth a pound of cure. Identifying dyslexia, Asperger's Syndrome, attention deficit disorder, other learning disabilities or issues, and developing strategies for dealing with them, can allow those kids to succeed in school educationally and socially. There will always be those few who overcome all odds on their own, but they are few.

From Wednesday's inbox:

State Reps. Mike Sturla, D-Lancaster; Barbara McIlvaine Smith, D-Chester; James Roebuck, D-Philadelphia; and Keith McCall (D-Carbon) were among the 65 co-sponsors of legislation approved today making the state’s special education funding formula more equitable and strengthening accountability for effective investment of new funding.

Representatives Roebuck and McIlvaine Smith were among the 22 Education Committee members approving the legislation. House Bill 704 aims to close the state’s share of the $380 million adequacy gap over a period of six years and to base state funding to school districts on a district's five-year average of actual students enrolled in special education.

“I am proud to see the House Education Committee today approve House Bill 704," Rep. Sturla said. "We are one step closer to providing comprehensive accountability and equitable funding for all special education students."

The bill also provides increased funding to districts that do well including students with disabilities in their neighborhood schools and general education classrooms. In addition, the bill considers a school district's level of poverty and whether a school district's current tax effort demonstrates a commitment to adequately funding its educational programming.

The legislation is based on the results of a 2009 report on the adequacy of state funding for special education in Pennsylvania which found that 391 school districts out of 500 have inadequate levels of spending for special education, and that $380 million in new funding is needed annually to achieve adequate funding.

In addition to achieving funding adequacy, the proposed legislation would establish new accountability requirements by requiring a district's special education plan to explicitly include a budget and benchmarks for investing special education dollars in programs and services aimed at improving student outcomes.

The legislation would also direct the PA Department of Education to measure a school district's performance against published performance indicators, and it would authorize PDE to provide enhanced monitoring and technical assistance to school districts.

More than 35 special education advocacy groups throughout the state support the legislation. For more information on the advocacy groups and to see the full state funding report go the Web site: reformspecialedfunding.org.

Keeping Up With PA Budget News

While I haven't been writing about the state budget process I've been reading about it. If you want to keep up at home, here are some good resources to follow:

the Capital Ideas blog, http://mcall.typepad.com/capitol_ideas/

On Twitter follow:

http://twitter.com/Capitol_Ideas

the #pabudget tag on twitter: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23PABUDGET

Or you can play along at home:

From our friends at Keystone Progress:

"Can you balance the Pennsylvania state budget?"

That's the question asked by a new online game with a serious purpose. "You Budget PA" (www.youbudgetpa.org )is a game that allows anyone to try to balance the Pennsylvania state budget by making choices about increasing revenue or making cuts in programs.

Pennsylvania is facing a budget deficit of historic proportions. This shortfall could get in the way of protecting our quality of life and building a strong future for all Pennsylvanians--if we let it.

As our state lawmakers wrestle over what to do, Keystone Progress wanted to give Pennsylvania taxpayers the opportunity to weigh the same options: Which programs do I cut? What's more important, education for kids or health care for low-income families? What's the right balance? Governor Rendell's budget proposed some major cuts. The Republican-led Senate passed a draconian budget that slashed many programs. But with a $5.8 budget hole, it's clear that belt-tightening isn't enough. There will also need to be some new sources of revenue to fulfill the constitutional requirement of a balanced budget.

After participants balance the budget, they will have the opportunity to send their solutions to their legislators.

Give it a try. Then send your solution to your lawmakers.