You can tell what the pet issues are at any time by the names of bills placed in the Congressional hopper. Witness the recently introduced H.R. 6495, (it’s a 40 page .pdf file, just so you know) better known as the “Transportation and Housing Choices for Gas Price Relief Act of 2008.” The lead sponsor is Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and 4 of the 5 co-sponsors are Democrats, with the reliably liberal RINO Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut added to make the measure “bipartisan.” (Blumenauer is a favorite of my cohorts at the AIA because he also sponsors a large portion of the “green” building legislation circulating through the House.)
But the bill is quite the reach if you look at cause and effect, because I’m not quite sure where the impact on gas prices will come given some of the topics the bill covers:
- Grants to state and local governments and other entities with priority given to, “proposals that will have the biggest impact on reducing single occupancy vehicle trips,” to the tune of $50 million.
- $850 million of grants and subsidies to mass transit.
- Making urban density a factor in community transit grants.
- $10 million in grants over each of the next three years to market “transportation alternatives” to single occupancy vehicles.
- Tinkering with the tax code yet again to reward behavior like teleworking, commuting by bicycle, an increase in allowable deductions for “transportation fringe benefits”, parking cash-out programs, and vanpooling.
- Encouraging federal agencies to participate in local transportation management associations.
- Incorporate transportation costs and transit accessibility into the index which determines low-income housing tax credits and possibly into the Multiple Listing Service which realtors use – that’s another $3 million.
- “Location-efficient” mortgage goals for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. (That in particular sounds like an invitation to a much larger bailout.) There’s also $2.5 million in grants set aside for each state to construct or acquire “location-efficient” housing, that being defined as within 1/2 mile of a transit stop.
- Adding high schools to those schools covered under the existing SAFETEA-LU transportation bill, in order to create “safe routes to school”. By the way, that’s another $2.7 billion through 2013.
I’m not seeing any new fuel supply out of these bullet points, are you?
I know those far to my left will argue that many of these provisions will reduce the need for gasoline in the long run, and for the moment I’ll accept the premise for sake of argument. At $4 a gallon, we would need to save 939,500,000 gallons of gasoline to make up the $3.758 billion my public school math figured out that this program would cost. However, that doesn’t count the energy used for all the studies and creating all of the regulations that will go along with enacting some of the bill’s finer points. It’s going to have a pretty large carbon footprint for dubious benefit – just looking at one portion of the bill, transit routes are subject to change based on ridership and a house that’s close to the bus stop one day may be a mile away the next.
In sum, what this bill is attempting to do is not to lower gas prices, for that would defeat the many nebulous purposes this bill would place the federal government out to achieve. Instead, it’s another attempt to regulate behavior by placing more carrots in the tax code and beating with the sticks those who may desire low- to moderate-income housing in areas which may be nice neighborhoods but which don’t happen to be near a bus route or train station.
However, the main point I’m bringing out is that, much like telling Americans that a bill is good because it’s “for the children” – or its corollary, telling Marylanders that a proposal is ideal because it’s “for the Bay” – placing those magic words “gas price relief” in the title belies that same old liberal claptrap which various members of Congress have been trying to enact for years but haven’t been able to get out of committee most of the time.
You can’t make a Corvette out of a Prius and you can’t bring gas price relief through regulating behavior. But Democrats in Congress keep trying, while ignoring the plain truth that the best way to achieve gas price relief is by increasing our domestic oil supply and refining capability. Bills advocating that approach languish in Congress, while this turkey of a bill may just see a vote before the end of this session.
