God Help Jim Oberstar If This Gets Out
Rep. Jim Oberstar had better hope that a recent GAO report (H/T: Lady Logician) doesn't get out. If it does, he could take quite a hit with Minnesota's taxpayers. Here's what the Pi-Press is reporting:
The Government Accountability Office report, to be discussed at Capitol Hill hearings today, calls for clearer goals and performance measures for the Highway Bridge Program, the $4.4 billion fund through which states help maintain their bridges.
The fund has been the source of controversy as many states, with Minnesota leading the way, have diverted available money for other transportation projects. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and others requested the report in the wake of last year's collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis.
As Michael notes here, Jim Oberstar has diverted money from the Highway Bridge Trust Fund for bike trails since 1991:
"Oberstar wrote the legislation in 1991 that first allowed Highway Trust Funds to flow to states for bike trails. Until then, the 50 states combined for the past 20 years had spent only $40 million on bike trails.
The 1991 law required each state to have a bicycle coordinator, funded from the Highway Trust Fund, to have a state bicycling plan, and would be given the authority to use abandoned railway grade beds as bicycle, pedestrian and in-line skating trails.
In the next six years, $1.3 billion was invested in bicycling facilities nationwide, Oberstar, an avid biker, said."
It's worth remembering what Rep. Oberstar said immediately after the I-35 Bridge collapse:
"If you're not prepared to invest another 5 cents in road reconstruction and bridge reconstruction, God help you. You don't have a sense of the future."
That $1.3 billion that got diverted from the Highway Trust Fund into the building of bike trails nationwide would've maintain alot of roads and bridges nationwide.
It's worth remembering that Jim Oberstar chairs the House Transportation Committee. The GAO's report is essentially an indictment against him for not performing his oversight duties. It's Rep. Oberstar's responsibility to schedule the oversight hearings for his committee. The GAO's report says that Rep. Oberstar's committee didn't set "clear goals and performance measures for the Highway Bridge Program."
How dare Jim Oberstar stand in front of a microphone and tell us that we aren't taxed enough after he's diverted money from road and bridge maintenance to build bike trails. If he wants to build bike trails, then that shouldn't be funded with Highway Trust Fund dollars. That's a dangerous and irresponsible misuse of those monies.
This has put a burr under my saddle on a number of different levels. The DFL, with State Sen. Transportation Committee Chairman Steve Murphy leading the way, used the bridge collapse to rationalize a $6.6 billion tax increase, most of which has nothing to do with road construction and bridge maintenance.
Sen. Murphy criticized Lt. Gov. Molnau, saying she was incompetent even though El Tinklenberg refused to fix the gusset plates when HNTB, a Kansas City engineering firm, recommended it.
Now we find out that the Federah Highway Trust Fund hasn't had serious oversight. It's time we told Rep. Oberstar that that's simply unacceptable. The trust fund was established to maintain federal roads and bridges. Under Rep. Oberstar's leadership, legislators haven't prioritized the things that are most important while wasting billions of dollars on niceties and frivolous projects like the Bridge to Nowhere.
Instead of conducting serious oversight on the Highway Bridge Program, they propose raising our taxes.
I've got this simple message for Rep. Oberstar:
God help the politicians that neglects his oversight responsibilities and raises taxes to cover up his pet pork projects.
Comments welcome at LFR.
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