Some safety recommendations are treated as essential—while others become negotiable once influential people object
By Veronique de Rugy.
"Congress loves to wrap legislation in the language of the public interest. This year's surface transportation reauthorization bill
is no exception. Supporters describe the House Transportation
Committee–passed package as a major safety bill designed to make
America's transportation system more secure and efficient.
Beneath their rhetoric lies the familiar Washington story of a bill
shaped less by evidence than by the demands of organized interests.
Perhaps the clearest example comes from the rail provisions.
If the bill is being driven by a coherent safety philosophy, why would
legislators soften rules requiring the faster replacement of old
hazardous-materials tank cars, despite repeated recommendations from the
independent National Transportation Safety Board? Some safety
recommendations are treated as essential, while others become negotiable
once influential people object.
The reason, of course, is politics, which come with clientelism.
Much of the debate over freight car inspections didn't center on the
frequency, timing, or type of inspections required—things the
conversation would focus on if safety was the overriding goal. Instead,
most of the argument centered on who would perform inspections.
Labor organizations pushed provisions that would narrow who
counts as qualified to inspect freight cars, thereby reserving those
jobs for organized carmen. They opposed railroads' de facto practice of
routing inspection volume to non-carmen staff (conductors) as a cost
saver that didn't affect safety. Legislators ultimately crafted a
compromise that reflects the competing interests of these two powerful
stakeholders more than measurable safety outcomes. This is regulatory
capture in action.
The role of organized labor is especially revealing. At a recent
Senate hearing, Teamsters union officials openly acknowledged that
autonomous trucking is going to happen and that workers have
historically adapted to technological changes. Rather than trying to
prevent deployment of the technology altogether, they argued that
policymakers should proactively focus on worker transition issues. This
is sensible enough. Yet many of the same labor groups strongly oppose
automation and technology deployment in freight rail, including with
systems believed to improve safety and detect defects far earlier than
traditional inspection methods.
Why is automation acceptable in trucking but unacceptable in rail?
The distinction, once again, is less about safety than politics. Where
technological change threatens existing, strongly pro-labor work rules,
opposition is intense. Where resisting new tech is less practical, the
conversation shifts to something else. That may be understandable from a
labor relations perspective, but legislators should not treat it as a
sound basis for national transportation policy.
The broader bill suffers from a litany of problems. Together, they point toward the same influence issues.
Fiscal conservatives, assuming there are still enough of
them to be heard in Congress, should be particularly concerned about a
package that authorizes roughly $580 billion in spending while doing
little to address the long-term insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund.
Legislators are instead choosing to promise more spending while avoiding
the structural reforms necessary to put transportation funding on
sustainable footing.
Meanwhile, they inserted a controversial new federal registration fee
structure for electric and hybrid vehicles. Progressives oppose it
because they believe it discourages E.V. adoption. Many conservatives
oppose it because it expands federal fee collection and further
entangles state governments in administering federal policy.
The growing coalition of critics extends well beyond those issues.
Transit advocates argue the bill underfunds transit and passenger rail.
Environmental groups oppose permitting and climate-related provisions.
Labor unions object to autonomous-vehicle language. Federalism-minded
Republicans question federal preemption provisions.
When a bill generates opposition from nearly every direction, it is
worth asking whether legislators are solving problems or trying to
accommodate too many competing interests.
That's the deeper lesson here. Congress increasingly treats
transportation policy as an exercise in stakeholder management. Instead
of establishing clear goals and allowing innovation and competition to
deliver results, legislators pile on mandates, carve-outs, protections,
and special-interest provisions designed to satisfy whichever
constituency has secured a seat at the table.
The result is predictable: Every organized interest receives something of value. Taxpayers inherit the costs.
The Senate will have an opportunity to reject this approach. Senators
should evaluate every one of the House's mandates and favors using a
simple test: Does it produce a measurable public benefit that likely
exceeds its cost? If the answer is no, it should be removed.
Transportation policy should be guided by safety outcomes, economic
efficiency, and fiscal discipline—not by whichever stakeholders have the
strongest lobbying operations. Unfortunately, Washington still
struggles to distinguish between the public interest and the interests
of those who are in the room."
