Outlook Uncertain on Highway, Climate-Change Bills

LAS VEGAS — With the attention of Congress and the Obama administration focused elsewhere, several political observers said the prospects for major actions like the highway bill and climate change legislation passing this year could be dim.

“They’re quickly coming to the conclusion that you’ve got to do one big issue and try to get it right, as opposed to trying to do 10 issues, massive issues and not get any one of them right,” said Tim Lynch, senior vice president of American Trucking Associations.

“And that’s why it is health care all the time and then that little thing called funding the government,” Lynch said at ATA’s Management Conference and Exhibition here.

Political analyst Brit Hume of Fox News told ATA members that because of the Democrats’ focus on issues like the stimulus package and health care reform, his “thesis is that the situation is bleak for the Democrats because of mistakes in judgment by them and by the president in how to approach the problems they face.”

He also predicted that climate-change legislation would not pass this year. Randy Mullett, vice president of government affairs for Con-way Inc., agreed, telling Transport Topics that “this year, it is not going to pass.”

“There’s too many other initiatives and too much push back as people are trying to figure out,” he said, but warned that the Environmental Protection Agency “has a lot of pent up demand to do a lot of regulatory things” on the subject of climate change.

“I would say we’re going to have multiple reauthorization extensions of the bill,” he said. “And unless the administration determines that this can really work as kind of a job stimulus package, they won’t make a move on this until after the next election because they’ve got to come up with a revenue stream.”

By Sean McNally
Senior Reporter