Posts about Mark Warner
Air
Senators threaten MWAA over DCA flight restrictions
Last year, members of the United States Senate were threatening to take over Metro if they didn't get what they wanted. Now, they're making those threats against the local airport authority, because it isn't acceding to western senators' demands to allow longer distance flights at National Airport.
Photo by Scorpions and Centaurs on Flickr.
WTOP reports that Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) are calling for hearings into the the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), its governance and finances after officials defended the rules limiting long-distance flights.
MWAA officials said adding flights at Dulles National and replacing other short-range flights with flights to the west will reduce traffic at Dulles and impact revenue expected from the Silver Line. They also argued that the airport's parking, security screening and baggage handling couldn't handle the additional demand.
Local senators, led by Mark Warner (D-VA) have been protecting the rule, which is popular in Arlington because it limits noise from aircraft. Last time we had this debate, though, commenters pointed out that relaxing the rule would lead to more midday flights, not night flights (since National's slot limitations only apply during the day), and that larger planes aren't as loud as they once were.
Virginia and Maryland's senators also are mostly protecting Dulles and BWI, wanting to drive as much traffic there. Each airport is more convenient to more of their constituents but less convenient to DC. More remote airports also drive sprawl, creating incentives for large office parks to locate near the airport but very distant from the rest of the region.
Meanwhile, unless the plan has changed, it would replace some amount of micromanaging at National with other micromanaging by different senators. For example, Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) included tried to include a provision requiring four small carriers to fly to West Texas, likely not the area with the highest travel demand to and from DC.
It's be great if hearings into MWAA looked into another important issue: Why MWAA is less transparent and accountable to local residents than other governing bodies. When MWAA decided to take away funding for Fairfax Connector buses along the Dulles Toll Road and prioritize freeway construction, there was little accountability. Unfortunately, when these senators talk about accountability, they naturally just mean accountability to them.
What do you think?
Update: Joe Brenckle from the Republican side of the Commerce Committee explained some details of the current proposal. It does not include Senator Hutchison's suggested amendment requiring some flights to West Texas. It would add 5 flights to go to "new entrant or limited incumbent air carriers" which could go outside the perimeter, and allow up to 16 existing flights to be changed to ones beyond the perimeter.
Transit
FTA finds WMATA, TOC safety failings; Senators frustrated
The Federal Transit Administration found serious communication failures at WMATA surrounding safety, and an inadequate safety oversight system in the Tri-State Oversight Committee (TOC). At a briefing yesterday, area Congressional representatives seemed extremely frustrated at their inability to fix this problem.
Photo by Foenix.
According to a report released yesterday, the current Tri-State Oversight Committee has not been sufficiently effective. Its members are lower-level employees of the three state DOTs, and top managers at those DOTs weren't even aware that TOC members reported to them. At least, Pierce Homer of VDOT was not, according to FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff at the hearing. Conflicting laws and procedures of the three jurisdictions sometimes interfere with the TOC, such as their communication with the media and response to FOIA requests.
TOC only worked with low-level staffers at WMATA, and were stymied when WMATA refused to allow them certain types of access because "there was no process in place" for them to go over the heads of the Chief Safety Officer. The FTA report simply recommends such a process be created, but it's also troubling that TOC members felt they couldn't do anything without a formal process. If their office building is on fire, do they consult their procedures manual to determine whether the official process is to notify their superiors first and wait at their desks for instructions before calling 911?
The FTA report also says "WMATA managers and executives stated that TOC, at times, appeared to be using the media in a punitive manner to resolve differences of opinion with WMATA," but TOC members "explained that the media found these stories and featured them, without influence from TOC." Perhaps the best thing to happen to safety at WMATA was the Post's discovery that WMATA refused track access, which led to the Board getting involved and setting up a new rule that staff notify them anytime they deny a TOC request. But instead of praising this development, the TOC is basically disavowing any involvement and WMATA managers are complaining about it.
WMATA marginalized their safety office, according to the report. The safety office is understaffed, with 10 of 41 positions vacant, depriving them of the ability to coordinate among departments or conduct safety audits of their own. Furthermore, the report says that the rail division doesn't share information with the safety office and that safety officials aren't involved in high-level discussions that could involve safety.
Many of these problems are now improving. The Board now has given TOC the official permission it was waiting for to pick up the phone and call the Board when something is wrong, and WMATA and the TOC are now working together to close "Corrective Action Plans" (CAPs), the recommendations from TOC on safety. They have closed 75 in the last two months, bringing the number outstanding from 140 to 66.
The most disappointing piece to me is why it took press attention and FTA oversight to identify, explain, and fix these issues. WMATA could have formulated and publicized its own report explaining how the safety structure was deficient and suggesting ways it would fix them on its own. It didn't. After the Post discovered and publicized the lapses, WMATA's statements instead nitpicked specific wording from TOC Chair Eric Madison to try to claim there wasn't a problem at all.
WMATA needs to own up to these things, not just respond to the FTA's report and have meetings but actually start coming clean to riders. There are undoubtedly some points the FTA missed; WMATA should proactively suggest those as well. As for the TOC, they have a solemn responsibility to ensure safety, and should take whatever steps necessary without regret, whether that's breaking procedure and going directly to top managers or the Board, or talking to the press and shouting from the rooftops when something is wrong.
At the briefing, Congressional representatives seemed remarkably frustrated, just as Senator Menendez and his colleagues were when they sent the letter threatening some indeterminate kind of "federal takeover." Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) also kept asking about a takeover, to which Rogoff repeatedly replied that the FTA does not operate transit systems and has no desire to take over WMATA nor do they think that would be helpful. Mark Warner (D-VA) asked about the Board structure, wondering if it's problematic that the Board Chairmanship keeps rotating, a point Homer raised in an op-ed shortly after John Catoe resigned submitted his resignation.
A takeover makes no sense, and changing the Board rotation wouldn't fix much. But the Senators clearly seem to be casting about for a solution. They don't want to devote all their time to this issue. They want to find something they can do to fix the problem. The Board, top managers, and advocates should work together to figure out what this is, so that the Senators can actually do something constructive instead of flailing around and breaking things.
Government
Senate "cutters" adding spending they like, removing programs they don't
Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are leading a small group of centrist Senators which, reportedly, is trying to cut the stimulus by about $100 billion. Supposedly, they feel the stimulus is too large. But according to a memo obtained by The Plum Line, they're also adding in some items as well.
Photo by John&Julie C on Flickr.
According to the memo, they hope to cut $3.4 billion from public transit, but at the same time, are adding in more money for "additional transportation funding." Presumably, if they're cutting transit, that additional funding would go to roads. (It might be airports, I suppose, but I doubt it.)
They're also cutting such items as Head Start, food stamps, child nutrition, firefighters, COPS hiring, NASA, and the CDC, while adding funding for defense operations and procurement.
The Senators reportedly in the room are Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mark Begich (D-AK), Tom Carper (D-DE), John Tester (D-MT), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Jim Webb (D-VA), Mark Warner (D-VA), Michael Bennett (D-CO), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Mark Udall (D-CO), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Susan Collins (R-ME), Arlen Specter (R-PA), Mel Martinez (R-FL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and George Voinovich (R-OH). We don't know if all of them support these cuts or not (Carper is a big rail advocate, for example).
This group seemed to be trying to take the mantle of the "responsible" people limiting the stimulus' excess. Of course, many economists think the stimulus is, if anything, not large enough. If it is to shrink, we should cut those items that won't spend the money right away. Those of you in defense can correct me if I'm wrong, but any new defense spending would end up going to projects pretty far down the road. Meanwhile, giving poor families food stamps and hiring more police can be spent right away.
Few people actually believed Collins, Nelson, and the rest of this "gang" were trying to actually be responsible spenders. It's clear, now, that they aren't even trying to make it look that way.
Update: The Senate just approved an amendment from Tom Coburn (R-OK) that prohibits using any stimulus money on any "any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, and highway beautification project." How, exactly, does Coburn know that spending on a zoo, park, theater or highway beautification doesn't stimulate the economy, while all the other crap in the bill does?
Call your Senators. Especially those of you who live in Virginia.
@ggwash
- Successful speed cameras require fair speed limits
- Amid scandal, don't lose sight of Gray's policy achievements
- Montgomery plans 160-mile, "gold standard" BRT system
- VDOT ignores own data, pushes widening I-66
- DC's parks are 5th best in the nation, says "Park Score"
- Bethesda gets new but terrible bike racks
- DC's divide need not be black and white
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