There are things that I love about the Daily Kos, and there are things I find ridiculous and regrettable. I can tune in here on any given day and see multiple recommended diaries expressing outrage over tweets or comments made by some insignificant talking head on some inconsequential cable news network, or outrage over some inartful comment by some once or future lion of the Democratic Party. People on the internet get ginned up over the most unimportant and irrelevant things because they involve some personality they have seen on TV. I guess it's cheap entertainment, but it doesn't do much to make the country a better place and it rarely addresses serious, weighty and consequential matters.
Today, we are confronted with one of those serious, weighty, consequential matters, and it seems almost completely off the political radar. Certainly, it hasn't even registered as a blip on the outrage meter. The House Transportation Committee is considering what Secretary Ray LaHood has called
the "worst transportation bill" he has seen in 35 years of public service.
The comment from Secretary LaHood comes from an editorial this morning in the paper of record, The New York Times. The Times' editorial calls it a "terrible" bill, which is hardly a surprise, but the editors don't step there. This bill is as bad a piece of legislation as any to have come out of the GOP-controlled House, and may even be the most damaging. As the editorial begins:
The list of outrages coming out of the House is long, but the way the Republicans are trying to hijack the $260 billion transportation bill defies belief.
With respect to transportation funding, the worst thing this bill does is to cut off any connection between the gas tax and transit funding. Traditionally, because highway travel and the auto industry were subsidized by considerable federal funding, the Congress has allocated 20% of the gas tax receipts and other highway user fees to support mass transit. This will make it far harder to find funding streams for mass transit programs. It also will further skew our country to reliance on automobiles and fossil fuels -- which is, no doubt, what the GOP has in mind.
The bill however also contains all sorts of horribles that have less direct connection to transportation issues. Validating the belief that the funding change is really about supporting oil companies is the proposal to open up coastal areas to more gas and drilling. Under this bill there will be few, if any places that remain off-limits due to environmental concerns.
The bill will also impose totally arbitrary deadlines on environmental reviews for highway projects. While one might be concerned about undue delays in job-producing construction projects that may be crucial to our infrastructure, these arbitrary deadlines cannot be a good way to address the concern.
In short, the House GOP's idea of a transportation bill is a progressive's nightmare. It is a bill that would intentionally create massive and unconscionable risks to our fragile coastlines and sea-life. It would continue to invest public policy in support of the fossil fuel industry at a time when we should be moving in the exact opposite direction. It would defeat any serious attempts to put renewable energy on equal footing with the oil and gas industry, and it will continue to skew public policy in favor of car-based road projects in lieu of mass transit.
So, what should we doing? Besides expressing sufficient outrage to motivate the netroots, we should be trying to influence the outcome of the legislation. The Senate bill is far better than the House bill and represents a decent compromise between progressives and conservatives. It isn't everything we'd want, but that's not reasonable to expect when the GOP controls the House. What is reasonable to expect is that the GOP might be responsive to constituents who express their concerns about what this bill might mean for the future of this country. There is a lot at stake here.
Specifically, what should we be doing? Try this:
Join with others, make a phone call, and then spread the word via email and your social networks today if you've already called. Use the #HouseTranspoFail hashtag today on Twitter.
Follow the lead of a group called
Transportation for America. If you click on that link, it will take you to page where you can find a link to your representative's phone number, You can also find a script for you to employ or modify for your use in the phone call. If you think there's a chance that your representative might support the House GOP bill, make the call.
There's a lot at stake. Time to crank up the outrage machine and do something constructive. We need change we can believe in, not change that scares the bejeezus out of us. Go forth and be the change we need.
***Update: Here's someone bringing the outrage -- Rep. DeFazio (D-OR), ripping into the process and the content:
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DeFazio in committee
(thanks to Ernest T Bass for bringing the clip to my attention)