Stevens Avenue
Browner/EPA Fiasco
This is amazing: a story about how the EPA was funding organizations that were trying to make roads less efficient and more polluting. The lies, misrepresentation, and malfeasance of traffic calmers extend all the way to Washington. Thankfully, somebody with some clout, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, found out about this little fiasco, and put a stop to it.
EPA's Browner Admits Support for Anti-Roads Activists Wrong,
Promises Reform
from TOLL ROADS newsletter, July/August 1999, no. 41
(submitted by Peter Samuel, editor.)
US EPA Administrator Carol Browner says the longstanding Transportation
Partners Program (TPP), under which the federal government's environmental
agency has been coordinating and funding anti-road groups around the
country "will be replaced with a more balanced program." Her decision to
end, or substantially reform, the controversial anti-roads program was
announced in a letter to Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) dated June 16 but
which has only just been made public by the agency. A letter from Robert
Wolcott acting deputy assistant admin at EPA to Congressman David McIntosh
(R-IN) dated July 13 says: "The Administrator asked me to respond to your
letter and to inform you that the Transportation Partners Program has been
discontinued."
In its place the EPA is establishing a new Transportation Environment
Network (TEN) in which explicitly pro-roads groups and professional
organizations will be welcome.
Browner tells Byrd in the 2-page letter that she had initiated a "thorough
review of the (EPA's) relationship with its partners, the funding of the
TransAct website, and our process to fund and provide oversight of the
grant recipients' activities." This followed a series of tough criticisms
and questions about the program made by Sen. Byrd in an independent
agencies appropriations subcommittee hearing Apr 29 (see History
following).
Browner's letter
Browner continued in the June 16 letter to Byrd: "As a result of the
review. I am making a number of important changes that will substantially
improve the program's accountability and balance, broaden the group of
funded participants, and lead to more effective policies to harmonize
environmental and transportation policy. I believe you will find these
changes address your concerns."
"First the (TPP) will be replaced with a more balanced program. As you
know in the past we have funded nine Principal (repeatedly misspelled
'le') Partners who in turn work with over 340 state and local governments,
businesses, and community and environmental groups. So as to prevent any
appearance of endorsing the activities of these 340 organizations, EPA
will no longer fund the nine Principal Partners to maintain a network of
these organizations. I agree with the concerns you raised regarding EPA
funding of the TransAct website. At our request the Surface
Transportation Policy Project (STPP) has agreed to renegotiate our
existing cooperative agreement so that no EPA funds are used to support
TransAct."
"Secondly we are eliminating the non-competitive grant process used to
fund the nine Principal Partners. It will be replaced with a competitive
Request for Proposals (RFP), open to all transportation and environmental
organizations. Proposals will be subject to external peer review, and
grant recipients will need to demonstrate the involvement of state or
local government officials. Moreover the agency has a rigorous post-award
monitoring process, which for these projects will include quarterly
reports and meetings, annual site visits, and a thorough review of all
publications prepared under the assistance agreements.
"Lastly EPA will initiate a dialog with a representative group of
transportation and environmental stakeholders, which will be called the
Transportation Environment Network (TEN). TEN will provide a forum for
members to review, on an ongoing basis, projects funded under the RFP, as
well as to provide an opportunity to discuss and undertake cooperative
activities to help reduce pollution from vehicles."
Browner says that AASHTO (the state DOTs' lobby), AHUA (highway users),
the Institute of Transportation Engineers and other groups will be invited
to join TEN. She ends her letter saying: "Please be assured that I
recognize the vital role transportation investments play for local
mobility and economic development needs... I look forward to working with
you... to meet our shared commitment to protect public health and the
environment."
In three pages of responses to Congr. David McIntosh's questions, Browner
concedes some of the criticisms of TPP, especially that its program was
excessively focused on opposing roads. She says the replacement program
the Transportation Environment Network "is embodying a broader approach"
and she cites the invitation to AASHTO, AHUA and ITE to participate.
EPA's legal basis for funding anti-roads activist groups was questioned.
Statutory authority
Browner says the statutory authority for TPP is contained in sec.103 of
the Clean Air Act, which states in (b) (3) that it has the authority to
make grants to public or private non-profit groups and to individuals to
collect and disseminate basic data on air quality "and other information
pertaining to air pollution and the prevention and control thereof."
So it all depends on the definition of "other information"?
This answer by Browner is quite at odds with the rationale for TPP stated
in its own official documents where "international commitments" to reduce
greenhouse gases are mentioned. We criticized EPA/TPP for citing
"international commitments" when the Administration has not submitted the
Kyoto treaty for Senate ratification. International commitments do not
seem to exist in the absence of a ratified treaty.
The last annual report of EPA/TPP makes no mention of the Clean Air Act
authority. It states: "This unique program was formed out of President
Clinton and Vice President Gore's Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP). The
CCAP describes the US response to the Earth Summit, a gathering in Rio de
Janeiro... The Transportation Partners Program is responsible for 44% of
the transportation sector vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) reductions called
for in the CCAP. To meet this goal, the program aims to reduce (VMT by) 20
billion nationally in the year 2000. Such a reduction constitutes 0.8% of
the VMT baseline outlined in the CCAP. EPA headquarters staff who work on
the program are referred to as TP Central. (Right out of Orwell - TRnl)
The program's mission is to reduce the growth in VMT through the promotion
of projects that provide alternatives to single occupancy vehicle (SOV)
travel..."
In another answer Browner conceded the anti-auto basis of TPP saying that
"EPA evaluated the success of the program by measuring carbon emissions
reductions resulting from reduced vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) as the
primary outcome performance measures...." She said that EPA "reported on"
reduction of pollutants that resulted from reduced VMT.
Smoking gun
McIntosh asked for details of road projects that grant recipients had
intervened against, the position of STPP, of EPA and the federal funding
at stake in each project. The 'smoking gun' in the scandal was "The
Directory of Transportation Reform Resources" jointly authored by the STPP
and EPA/TPP, a 194 page manual listing state by state the road projects
that the different constituents of TPP were working against. Browner's
letter avoids mention of the directory and says that its office of general
counsel is "in the process of identifying information contained in EPA
files which is responsive to your request."
Included in the documents provided to the Congress is a spreadsheet
showing US EPA grants under the TPP. Largest recipient has been
Environmental Defense Fund - $1,485,000, followed by STPP - $1,480,000,
Local Government Commission - $1,192,000, Local Environmental Initiatives
USA - $1,076,000, Renew America - $585,000, Association for Commuter
Transp/Transp Demand Management Institute - $565,000, Bicycle Federation
of America - $465,000, Public Technology - $395,000, Center for Clean Air
Policy - $225,000. Funding ran over 6 years from FY94 through FY99.
EDF supported a number of positive pro-roads policies especially the use
of road pricing to fund and manage extra highway capacity in the Bay area
and in Washington, DC. Telephone logs, letters, records of meetings, the
TransAct website and publications under TPP show that STPP was at the
center of using US taxpayer money to organize opposition to road projects
at the local level. STPP was also the major source for the totally
one-sided content of the program, and its constant reiteration of catchy
half-truths and anti-road/anti-auto slogans, and its generally
propagandistic tone.
HISTORY:
This newsletter broke the story that set off a rumbling of
indignation in the roads community, that generated the fuss on Capitol
Hill, that led to Administrator Browner's review of her Transportation
Partners Program, and her promised reform. TRnl#29 July 98, and TR#33 Nov
98 devoted over 10 pages to our investigations of EPA/TPP via regular
journalistic inquiries, website searches, freedom of information filings,
and some valuable leaks from unnamable whistleblower allies. It was
revealed first here that the EPA had been coordinating and funding a
widespread campaign of virulent anti-roads propaganda via supposedly
independent citizen groups, sponsoring and training them in anti-roads
activism, conducting monthly telephone conference calls with anti-roads
activist leaders to coordinate activity, and that it was paying for the
leading anti-roads website (www.transact.org). If this wasn't enough, a
high level task force at EPA had approved an intensified and better
staffed and funded program of intervention at the local government level
to prevent roads projects being put into the mix of alternates in the
planning and public consultation process. The new policy was to work to
abort road projects before birth! We were the first to publicize the
details of this internal EPA report.
We laid out the totally one-sided anti-auto/anti-roads emphasis of the EPA
and EPA-supported materials, pointed out falsehoods in their
representation of the issues --- in particular their repeated assertions
that new road laneage "only generates traffic," that it is the major
factor promoting 'sprawl', that auto emissions are rapidly getting worse,
and road expansion does nothing to relieve congestion. We focused most
heavily on the EPA's heavy financial support and close working
relationship with the environmentalist organizations' anti-roads
Washington lobby, Surface Transportation Policy Project. The EPA covered
the costs of the STPP website and there were prominent links with the
www.epa.gov/tp website of EPA/TPP. We published the hourly pay rates EPA
was paying STPP staffers. We discovered another similar fake website
with the non-government suffix .org which purported to be a citizen
network but which was in fact a fully controlled EPA site as well.
AHUA presentation
The American Highway Users Alliance asked us to give a presentation on all
this February 2 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Pentagon City, VA at a
special meeting of their board of directors and other invited guests. (We
were offered and accepted a $500 fee.) There we showed slides of the
source materials showing close collaboration between EPA and activist
groups on blocking road projects, including toll road projects, and the
memo outlining EPA's plans to intensify intervention at the local
government level to try and kill road improvements before they gained
momentum via the MIS/EIS process. TRIP, ARTBA and AGC, other highway
lobby groups showed great interest too, and mentioned our materials in
faxes to members and in their newsletters. A number of highway industry
lobbyists began to take up the TPP issue, and at least one state secretary
of transportation we know, circulated many copies of our critique of
EPA/TPP. By March we were receiving a constant flow of requests by
telephone for copies of the newsletter's coverage of EPA/TPP, and our copy
machine and printer here rarely cooled down.
Dan Murphy Washington correspondent for INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY, and
commentator Randal O'Toole of the Thoreau Institute (www.ti.org), wrote
their own solid pieces on the issue, discovering new angles to the
scandal, turning up additional information, and adding to the momentum.
Congressmen began to stir. Especially infuriated at the EPA was Robert
Byrd, veteran WV senator and a Democrat. He has worked hard to improve
the economy of his mountainous state by pushing major highway projects
there, and was outraged to find that a government agency was funding his
opponents. We don't know who gave him a copy of our newsletter but we
understand he "hit the roof" when he read it and asked staff to check it
out and follow through hard --- or words to that effect. We supplied the
Senate Appropriations Committee with a thick heap of supporting documents
after we heard about Sen. Byrd's interest. Rep. David McIntosh (R), chair
of the house subcommittee covering the EPA, was most active on the House
side. He ordered inquiries into EPA/TPP. He expressed doubt about the
EPA's legal authority for the TPP, and noted that the grants to activist
groups were irregular in that instead of being advertised and made on the
basis of competitive bids, they were simply handed out to EPA friends and
allies. McIntosh fired off a very tough list of questions to Administrator
Browner.
Meanwhile, April 29 at a senate sub-committee hearing on the EPA
represented by Browner herself, Byrd took TPP apart, and in the wake of
that she initiated the 6-week review which led to the decision to
discontinue, or reconstitute, the program.
EDITORIAL:
In case you hadn't noticed, this newsletter provides reportage
with attitude. One attitude we developed after moving into this niche of
reporting roads was that the major Washington anti-roads lobby Surface
Transportation Policy Project (STPP) were a bunch of jerks, the very worst
kind of Washington, DC political operators. Important operators though,
with a major role in shaping federal transport policy and legislation and
a central role in a misguided national movement to deny Americans the
infrastructure they need for their continued mobility. Decided they were
jerks, frankly, when they wouldn't take or answer polite phone calls ---
about ten of them over the course of a year --- inquiring about the basis
for their latest statements.
They wouldn't explain themselves,substantiate their claims, or demonstrate
even the most elementary respect for reason.
After a period of watching them and of trying to deal with
them, we decided these people care not a jot for facts, for data, for
logic... indeed for reality. Zealots, they have their policy (Stop Roads)
and the only thing of interest to them is any scrap of dissociated data or
of half-baked notions that can be used to support that policy. This is
contempt for intellect and for reason.
And talk about a far-fetched ridiculous policy. An extreme policy. This
is America after all --- land of prosperity, immigration, opportunity and of
freedom. Immigration means more people and growing cities, that can only
grow around roads. Prosperity generates the income to buy new housing and
some space around it, and to buy high quality mobility and freedom and
opportunity demand mobility --- personal mobility. And this is an age of
dispersed and movable workplaces, multiple worker households, flextime,
telecommuting in which the door-to-door, go-when-you're-ready automobile
simply has no serious competition. For all their tactical and
propagandistic smarts, these STPP guys live intellectually in a cloud
cuckoo land of unreality in thinking they can turn back the tide of
automobility in America.
They're a drag
Yet they ARE capable of being a drag on the system --- of slowing down
needed road improvements, making each road enhancement more of a struggle
for its sponsors, more expensive to develop, to permit and to build. They
do delay life-saving and congestion relieving projects that will
eventually be built, and meantime these jerks diminish the quality of
people's lives and see people unnecessarily maimed and killed in traffic
accidents, who would live on better roads. They are also capable of
contributing to a lot of governmental waste, of directing taxpayer money
into black holes...
Well, in a free society everyone has a right to advocate any nutty idea
with their own resources. But they don't have the right to do
surreptitious sweetheart deals with like-minded bureaucrats, to co-opt the
prestige of the US government to their purposes, or to divert taxpayer
money down their own holes... so we went for them. We hope we did that
with a modicum of fairness. Despite being "ag'in em" we tried to report
everything about them accurately. We did not exaggerate, so far as we
know. We tried not to, in part because your credibility suffers, but also
because it is misleading to your customers (readers) and just plain wrong
to misrepresent facts.
We thought frankly that they'd all just hunker down and ride out whatever
little turbulence we were able to generate with an exposé of the
STPP-EPA/TPP deal. Carol Browner's EPA probably remains as firmly
committed as ever to misguided STPP-like notions of trying to limit
automobility in America by choking off road improvements. But she and
STPP ran into one serious and formidable old pol in Senator Robert Byrd
and into another serious and formidable young pol in Cong. David McIntosh.
Those two and their staffs deserve the credit for cutting off taxpayer
subsidies to the zealots. But let's give Browner the benefit of the
doubt. When she was forced by Sen. Byrd to review the detail of her
agency's TP program she had the courage and integrity to stand up and
acknowledge there was something wrong, and to take the initiative to kill
an indefensible relationship with a lobby group. American government is
healthier for that, and Browner deserves a measure of respect even from
her opponents for doing the right thing.
LATE ADDITION: Allen Greenberg, director of the newly formed Transp
Environment Network (TEN) at EPA responded to our request for comment on a
draft of the report above. We thank him for picking up some errors which
we corrected above. Greenberg interestingly defends the Transp Partners
Program (TPP), so much so that one wonders why his boss Administrator
Carol Browner got rid of it, and how far he is committed to conducting a
different operation from TPP. He claims of TPP: "Information disseminated
through the program includes peer reviewed research products that provide
critical information to decision makers at the state and local level. This
includes new research on the relationships between road capacity and
induced travel..."
Comment: The curious use of the present tense "includes" suggests this
was lifted from a defense of TPP produced before Administrator Browner
killed the program. In all the many TPP materials I gathered I never saw
a single peer-reviewed study, but there might have been some such that I
missed. That would not alter the fact that the great bulk of TPP
material was quite one-sided sloganizing, pamphleteering and propaganda
against auto/road travel, not professional studies conveying useful
information. STPP, the principal collaborator and benefactor in TPP,
produced only activist anti-roads propaganda, stuff without any
acknowledgment of the benefits of automobiles and roads, or of their
central role in providing Americans with mobility.
Greenberg writes: "Your story also incorrectly states that the process of
environmental streamlining (as mandated in TEA-21) is an EPA attempt to
have local governments kill road projects..."
Comment: The EPA's official TEA-21 Workgroup Report "New Approaches to
Integrate Environment and Transportation Policy through TEA-21
Implementation" (8/26/98) states: "EPA can use this as an opportunity to
change the transportation planning process by building on our involvement
in plan development to ensure that demand management strategies with broad
multi-media benefits are addressed at key points in the planning
process."(p4) The document notes that "Currently most environmental
reviews occur after (road) projects have a political constituency behind
them, making substantial changes very difficult." (p6) This is clearly a
reference to the need to go against road projects early in the planning
process at the local level. The document calls for "raising our
constituencies awareness of the new opportunities" (p7), these
constituencies clearly being the anti-roads groups. In the context of
"streamlining" the document mentions the need to use it to establish
"better transportation policies and strategies that reduce reliance on new
roads and low density development and reducing the need for stakeholder
involvement at later stages of implementation." (p8) The end "Summary of
Action Items" includes: "Increase efforts to get involved earlier in
regional transportation planning and project selection." The report called
for an extra 31.5 FTE personnel in order to staff the intensified effort.
This strategy document is saying as clearly as its authors are capable:
"Get in there at the local MPO level, and kill those road projects early."
This "New Approaches..." document was the product of a formally
constituted workgroup and is signed by 15 senior EPA officials (5 of whom
are regional administrators). The cover memo says that it was "closely
coordinated by staff and senior management from across the agency
including (7 offices) and (5) regions." I was told by the director of
TPP that "New Approaches" was adopted as official Agency policy on
transportation for TEA-21 without amendment.
"New Approaches" states that more forceful EPA policies against roads and
single occupant travel (in favor of "alternatives") are necessary because
of "very rapid increases in driving" and because "vehicle-caused pollution
doubles periodically in most metropolitan areas" (p4). These statements,
which are laid down as the basis for the whole EPA program are false.
Driving as measured by vehicle-miles-traveled has been growing an average
3.4% the past five years, about the rate of growth of the economy, and
trending down. That is hardly "very rapid."
As for vehicle-caused pollution doubling periodically, the EPA's own
"National Air Pollution Emissions Trends" publication reports highway
vehicles total emissions 1980-1995: CO reduced 25%, NOx reduced 12%, VOCs
reduced 32%, PM-10 reduced 25%, SO2 reduced 42%, lead down 97%. You can
choose different periods and you get different numbers but the sign is
almost invariably a minus. The trend in total vehicle-produced pollution
is heavily down. 'Halves periodically' would have been closer to the
truth than doubles.
So the whole EPA program for attacking autos/roads following TEA-21 is
based on a Goebbelesque lie. Officials who sign off on such rubbish in a
major strategy report can hardly be expected to curb propaganda and
nonsense in their hirelings.
Editor Peter Samuel is reachable
at tollroads@aol.com , tel. (301) 631-1148.
© 2000 American Road & Transportation Builders Association