The year 2013 certainly provided no shortage of fodder for policy wonks. We faced off over the debt limit and government shutdown, scraped together a budget deal, alternatively debated and ignored immigration reform, witnessed the shaky rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges, confronted the realities of our government’s surveillance in the name of national security, and struggled to develop and maintain diplomatic relations with our European allies and Mideast counterparts. This recitation, of course, merely brushes the surface.
In true New Year’s fashion, we at the Review are looking ahead to what 2014 has in store. There is no doubt that many of the prominent issues of 2013 will remain so in the year ahead: the debate surrounding NSA surveillance of US citizens and our foreign allies is sure to continue full force, as will the scrupulous examination of health reform implementation, and the debate over the future of US fiscal policy. The midterm elections will, of course, be front and center. There are, however, some less well-known, yet equally important, policy issues we will be watching heading into the New Year. Our contributing authors highlight a few of these issues and their potential ramifications. We recommend adding these to your 2014 policy radar. If 2013 is any indication of what lies ahead, we can look forward to an active and potentially monumental year in public policy.
Here’s to a happy, healthy, policy-filled New Year.
In this article:
Iacta ales est: the battle for the GOP – Jacob Patterson-Stein
California High Speed Rail – Dennis Lytton
Obama’s Not So Secret Weapon on Climate Change: John Podesta – Garrett Brinker
Surface Transportation Reauthorization – Dennis Lytton
Iacta alea est: the battle for the GOP
The war has been going for some time. With battles in 2010, 2012, 2013. In Virginia, Alabama, and even Kentucky. The coming year will be a better test than those past for where the Republican Party is heading. After 2014, we will have a little more data to really see how much sway the Tea Party and far right have after their electoral victories and political setbacks. This is not so much a prediction as a function of the political cycle. With each election since 2010, pundits have been divided over what to make of the results for where the electorate leans. Depending on whom you ask, we are a liberal country that votes conservative, hates Obamacare, but loves aspects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We don’t know what we are doing overseas, but whatever it is, we’re against it. This is why 2014 matters.
The well-noted problem with the Tea Party, to paraphrase Fast Times at Ridgemont High, is that the country keeps getting more diverse, but its ideas stay the same. Within Congress, Ted Cruz’s non-filibuster speechfest and the countless votes to repeal President Obama’s largest policy achievement, the ACA, will likely be forgotten as people go to the doctor and go to the polls. Michelle Bachmann is out, although not quite down. Rand Paul has been able to fire up younger voters worried about drones and the NSA, but the left also shares these concerns. Jim DeMint and Ron Paul both left Congress. Marco Rubio has been sidelined for proposing policy bordering on substantive. This all comes as some of the far right’s financial backers have started to question the effectiveness of voting with their wallets.
Despite the limits of much of the political leadership of the Tea Party and the caucus’s declining national popularity, 2013 saw the rising prominence of groups such as Heritage Action and the Club for Growth, which are largely associated with the push for a government shutdown. Perhaps the most telling image was the one that closed the political season last year: an angry John Boehner railing against the aforementioned groups for opposing the end of year budget deal.
There is no doubt that 2010 was a notable year, but data show that the predictive value of midterm and special elections is often limited at best. Amid the refrain of shock over how divided Congress has been over the last four years, there have been subtle movements within the GOP. It has been tough to say exactly whose platform and policies are most closely in line with what voters want, think, and need. Sure, the 2016 presidential elections are already on the horizon and, with the words “shadow campaign” getting thrown around, will likely provide more drama. There will always be concern about districts that have been sliced and diced such that elections are more of an exercise in checking boxes than a registration of grievances and goals. Yet, after years of trying to decipher the tea leaves, 2014 may finally provide actual insight into where the electorate stands. With Michael Needham quoting polls about how unpopular the GOP is and few “mainstream” conservatives stepping up to rally behind Boehner’s complaints, this year’s midterm elections could prove to be a decisive battle that truly illustrates a trend within the Republican Party.
California’s High Speed Rail (HSR) project ended 2013 embattled. The project, the only full high speed rail project in the US, faces insufficient federal funding, an adverse state court ruling that has complicated the use of state bond money, and a groundbreaking that has been pushed back from a planned Fall 2013 date. It would seem a reasonable guess that the project, heralded by the Obama Administration as part of the 2009 stimulus, is on its last leg.
Some believe that the project may need to go it alone and advance without federal support in the near term in the face of policy deadlock on Capitol Hill. The project enjoys fairly unified support from the California Democratic party, which controls all of the statewide offices and more than two-thirds of the state legislature. How it can move beyond initial construction in the Central Valley and result in the completion of a true HSR capable of 220 MPH from San Francisco to Los Angeles and San Diego, in an age of federal austerity, is an open question.
Despite the challenges, there are some positive signs. The Great Recession’s austerity budgets in California ended in November of 2012 when voters approved tax increases. California’s cap-and-trade auction for carbon emissions raised about $1.4 billion in revenue in 2013, and there is a commitment from state officials to use some of those funds for HSR. Despite the legal issues discussed above, there was no order to stop the project. Therefore, the start of construction early this year is still on.
California could serve as a litmus test for large infrastructure projects in the rest of the country. After the 2010 election, GOP Governors in Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio all rejected stimulus money for passenger rail. Will California’s shovels in the ground be a game changer for HSR in 2014?
Obama’s Not So Secret Weapon on Climate Change: John Podesta
In June, President Obama spoke on the steps of Georgetown University’s Old North building, laying out an ambitious plan to cut greenhouse gases, mainly through a series of executive actions. The plan includes: reducing carbon emissions by directing the Environmental Protection Agency to expedite the creation of new carbon emissions standards for both new and existing power plants; preparing the US for the inevitable impacts of climate change, such as directing the Department of Transportation to work with transit agencies in Hurricane Sandy-affected regions to make them more resilient to future disasters; and stimulating international efforts to address our warming climate.
With Congress continually unwilling to act on this issue, Obama is bringing in the big guns to expedite his Administration’s goal of reducing emissions. John Podesta, former White House Chief of Staff under President Clinton and current Chair of the Center for American Progress, was brought in to serve as a special advisor to the President. Hiring Podesta signals an aggressive and unilateral approach to policy implementation. It also indicates an intentional shift to implementing climate change regulations solely through the executive branch. And many believe Podesta will be a transformational agent for climate change in Washington.
What type of executive action might Podesta suggest? One logical place to start is a report recommending executive action on clean energy and energy independence measures written by Podesta himself. Action items in Podesta’s report on behalf of the Center for American Progress include: doubling the federal transportation fleet of non-oil-based fueled vehicles by 2015, requiring metropolitan buses to be powered by “low-polluting fuel,” catalyzing the retirement of coal-fired plants, expanding federally protected lands, and promoting military use of renewable energy sources.
All of these measures can be accomplished through executive action, without the need for Congress to enact any legislation. Podesta’s aggressive style and previous commitment to clean energy, both in Clinton’s White House and at the Center for American Progress, should enable him to press ahead where Obama can’t and make climate change a thorn in the side of Congress. One issue Podesta has pledged to avoid is the Keystone XL pipeline, a divisive matter that Obama has evaded for most of his presidency. Podesta publicly opposes the construction of the pipeline, though he vowed to recuse himself from any decisions Obama makes on the subject. Either way, Podesta’s hiring serves as a powerful symbol for the Obama Administration’s commitment to reversing climate change and will certainly be a focus for the Administration in the coming year. Change must come soon—we’re running out of time.
Surface Transportation Reauthorization
The Murray-Ryan budget deal in Congress seems to have returned the federal budget process to some semblance of “regular order” for the time being. However, there is potential for many other games of chicken in the federal legislative process. Programs such as Social Security and Medicare enjoy a measure of immunity from the budget brinksmanship since, in general, their authority to allocate benefits and collect revenues does not sunset. Surface transportation spending (think roads, rail transit–essentially everything but aviation), however, is not so lucky. The current authorization called MAP-21 (Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century), which provides for how the Department of Transportation spends money on surface transportation projects and authorizes the federal gas tax, expires on September 1, 2014.
The federal government has been in the surface transportation business since the early 1900s, and has been the primary driver of funding and policy since the 1950’s Interstate Highway Project. As with the budget, we have been here before. Over the last 20 years expiring authorizations have been temporarily extended many times. We have sometimes narrowly avoided shutdowns of highway and transit projects as well as de-authorizations of the federal gas tax. Controversial issues include: determining the proportion of funding that will be allocated to transit, highway passenger rail, and other “alternative modes” (such as bikeways),how much and how to expand federal loan programs to states, local transit authorities, and private railroads (called TIFIA and RIFF), and streamlining the environmental review process.
The gas tax, however, creates the biggest problem for the long-term sustainability of US surface transportation financing. The tax is the primary source of funds for surface transportation at the federal level, but is not indexed against inflation (it is a tax on each gallon of gas and not on its sale price) and has been the same since 1997. Along with an increase in auto efficiency, there has been a well-documented decline in the amount of miles driven, particularly among millennials. It seems clear that a consensus to raise the gas tax is lacking in this Congress (although Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer form Oregon recently introduced legislation to double the tax). Unfortunately, the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) projections show that the current regime is unsustainable. When the CBO data is combined with statistics on how little the US draws in gas tax revenue and how little it spends on its surface transportation infrastructure compared to other developed countries, the picture appears grim. Look for another stopgap measure at the end of the year and a “punt” until after the election in 2015.
Established in 1995, the Georgetown Public Policy Review is the McCourt School of Public Policy’s nonpartisan, graduate student-run publication. Our mission is to provide an outlet for innovative new thinkers and established policymakers to offer perspectives on the politics and policies that shape our nation and our world.
Great and informative article on John Podesta and climate change. Quite a unique perspective with a wonderfully articulated approach. Bravo!