Opinion: Transportation as an Election Issue

By David Barnes, Staff Writer

Call me an optimist, but transportation issues may play a role in next year’s elections. Transportation issues, especially those dealing with freight, generally do not attract much attention from politicians, press or the public. While of vital importance to the nation’s economic well-being, trucking and railroads just aren’t sexy enough to be a hot-button issue, except for use as a prop at a whistle stop speech or a photo opportunity.

The candidates for president are missing a golden opportunity to score political points with freight issues. If Sen. John McCain, for example, wants to find populist issues that will resonate with the American public to bolster his presidential campaign, he need look no further than the bully pulpit of the Senate Commerce Committee, which he chairs.

The committee has jurisdiction over all four modes of transportation and is poised for action on the vital issues of railroad productivity and motor carrier safety. The Surface Transportation Board is overdue for reauthorization, and its chairman, Linda Morgan, is up for renomination. The two issues were intertwined last week at a committee hearing on Morgan’s renomination.

The AFL-CIO opposes Morgan’s bid for a second term because of her past votes to allow merging railroads to void labor contracts. Shippers are also less than thrilled with Morgan, who has led the board in unanimous votes to approve three major rail mergers since 1996. The 1996 acquisition of Southern Pacific by Union Pacific and the 1998 sale of Conrail to CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern have been problematic, to say the least. Shippers with access to only one railroad are pushing for increased competition as a means of improving service and reducing costs. That, combined with labor’s efforts to protect workers at merging railroads, has stalled STB reauthorization.

The issue may appear on the White House’s radar screen as first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton steps up her Senate candidacy in New York. When she travels to vote-rich Buffalo, she will surely hear the complaints of manufacturers who are having trouble with rail service due to the sale of Conrail.

While Morgan’s confirmation and STB reauthorization could prove problematic for McCain, the issue of motor carrier safety offers real political opportunities for the Arizona Republican. McCain’s support for a federal motor carrier administration will win him support from trucking, which is an increasingly strong political force. The congressional debate over the need for the agency’s creation also gives McCain a chance to take shots at both Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

Truck-related fatalities have increased during the Clinton-Gore administration as resources have been refocused from enforcement to education. That was done as part of Clinton’s effort to make government more responsive to business and Gore’s effort to improve government efficiency. By denouncing the administration’s record on motor carrier safety, McCain could score with soccer moms, older Americans and anyone who drives on the increasingly crowded highways.

Another area of political opportunity for McCain is the administration’s failure to open four U.S. border states to Mexican trucks as mandated by the North American Free Trade Agreement. That issue will become increasingly prominent as the end of the year approaches. Under the terms of the NAFTA, the United States is supposed to allow Mexican trucks free access to the entire country beginning Jan. 1.

The safety of Mexican trucks is a hot issue in Texas, where the U.S. Department of Transportation has been forced to deploy increasing numbers of inspectors to augment the limited number of state agents supplied by Bush.

At the same time, the Teamsters union continues to pressure the administration to limit Mexican trucks to narrow commercial zones along the Southwest border. Gore’s biggest political opponent, former Sen. Bill Bradley, opposes opening the border. While that will help Bradley with the Teamsters, it doesn’t ensure that the union will back the New Jersey Democrat.

Teamsters President James P. Hoffa says the union will not march in lockstep with the Democratic Party as it did under his predecessor, Ron Carey. The union has one of the nation’s largest political action committees and has the potential to wage an aggressive campaign for political candidates it supports.

A wild card that could help transportation emerge as an issue in the presidential campaign is former Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole.

Transportation issues are barely visible on Dole’s radar screen, despite the presence of fellow DOT Secretary Jim Burnley as a key adviser. But if Dole is looking for an issue to set her apart from the crowd, she could well find it in truck safety. It would give her a chance to talk about her long history in government service, including her 1983 effort to move responsibility for truck safety from the Federal Highway Administration to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Improving trucking safety is something that will resonate with everyone who shares the road with a truck.

Dole was reminded of her DOT days in August, when she saw a No-Zone demonstration put on by the Motor Freight Carriers Association at a meeting of women legislators in California. She talked with truck drivers and climbed into the cab of a truck. If she was smart, she would take the issue and run with it before one of her competitors takes it away from her.

Presidential candidates looking for an issue that will resonate with the American public need look no further than their nearest highway or to the old motto, “Without trucks, America stops.”