Road Warriors - how environmentalists affect transportation projects
National Review, June 28, 1999 by Jonathan H. Adler
PUBLIC POLICY
Al Gore's way or the highway.
Mr. Adler is the author of Environmentalism at the Crossroads.
April the Fifteenth was an even more taxing day than usual for commuters in the Washington, D.C., area. That afternoon U.S. district- court judge Stanley Sporkin halted the planned renovation and expansion of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. The bridge, which crosses the Potomac, is deteriorating rapidly. State and federal officials were planning to expand it from six lanes to twelve to ease congestion on the Washington Beltway.
But environmentalists, historic-preservation groups, and the city of Alexandria, Va., had other ideas, and Judge Sporkin upheld their claim that construction would violate several federal environmental laws. He ordered a further environmental review before work may continue. And that could take a while: In May, EPA official W. Michael McCabe was insisting on a full-fledged Environmental Impact Statement by the Federal Highway Administration, which could take up to two years-and that's just for starters. Local officials warn that substantial traffic disruptions will be inevitable if work does not begin soon.
The Wilson Bridge is just the latest casualty of a war on roads being waged around the country by environmental activists and "smart growth" advocates, aided and abetted by the Clinton administration and especially Al Gore. It is a war often financed by taxpayers: The EPA's "transportation partners" program, for instance, gives activist groups millions of dollars to agitate against road building and development.
According to Randal O'Toole of the Thoreau Institute, these "partners" opposed highway projects in 36 states in 1997. A major recipient of EPA largesse is the Surface Transportation Policy Project (dedicated to "the needs of people, rather than vehicles"), which runs a website for the EPA's partners program and serves as a clearinghouse for smart- growth propaganda. The project's steering committee reads like a Who's Who of environmental activists and liberal interest groups, including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice.
The usual tactic of this anti-road coalition is to file lawsuits-under the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, or anything else within reach. A hospital access road in San Bernardino County, Calif., was held up for fear it might imperil an endangered fly. Even when these lawsuits are baseless, they can delay and add costs to construction. According to one highway consultant, "If you have the money and the smarts, you can stop almost anything."
The casualties mount. Last November, the Sierra Club filed lawsuits to stop highway projects in Atlanta and St. Louis. In February, the group promised to sue to stop the Suncoast Parkway in Central Florida. The Nevada Environmental Coalition plans a lawsuit to curtail federal highway spending and impose more stringent controls in that state as well.
The environmentalists' largest victory came in March. The Clean Air Act requires highway projects to be in an area that meets federal air- quality standards or to follow an EPA-approved clean-air plan. The EPA had been allowing projects to continue if they slipped out of compliance in the middle of construction-if, for instance, pollution temporarily increased in the area. But in a case brought by the Environmental Defense Fund (strangely enough, against the EPA), a federal appeals court held that these projects, too, had to be stopped.
The decision could have a tremendous impact nationwide. In Texas, for example, transportation officials estimate that in the next four years it could endanger as many as 87 projects, more if the EPA succeeds in raising air-quality standards. A conformity lapse in the Dallas-Fort Worth area would threaten an estimated 35 projects, including the President George Bush Turnpike and the I-635/U.S. 75 interchange. On May 3, the EPA sent a letter to Texas governor George W. Bush threatening to impose sanctions as early as December 2000 if federal air standards are not met.
One reason the EPA and environmental activists have so much leverage over local transportation projects is that most highways are financed, at least in part, by federal gas-tax revenues-revenues that come with conditions, covering everything from drinking ages to the design of automobile-emission tests. But federal meddling would be reduced if Washington were to slash both highway spending and the gas tax, as proposed by House Budget Committee chairman (and presidential candidate) John Kasich and Florida senator Connie Mack, both Republicans. States and localities could then build their own roads on their own dime. Indeed, they could build more, since the federal government would no longer be diverting gas-tax funds to mass transit and other environmentally correct ventures.
Congress rejected that proposal handily last year. But Republican senator Kit Bond of Missouri is pushing legislation that would at least loosen the noose around road construction. The Sierra Club has responded with a barrage of radio advertisements against Bond and Missouri's other senator, Republican John Ashcroft. Bond's proposal, the ads say, threatens the nearly 50,000 children with asthma in the St. Louis area. "Please clean up the air," entreats a child at the spot's close.
Perhaps if politician had to live like we commoners, There would be enough left of the tax monyes, to do things besides, their "reelections"!?