Chicago, IDOT Seeking Federal Rail Construction Grants

In separate but related moves, Chicago’s City Council and IDOT are seeking federal funding for rail construction projects intended to speed up CTA light rail commuting and untangle south side rail conflicts among Amtrak freight traffic and METRA commuter lines. The City Council has rushed through a TIF district between North Avenue and Devon Avenue straddling the CTA’s red and purple line tracks. The TIF district is intended to generate $851 million in revenue dedicated to improving CTA tracks, to be used to match a federal $1.1 billion grand the City has applied for during the Obama administration’s waning days.

IDOT is seeking a federal grant of $160 million to eliminate passenger/freight rail conflicts in the 75^th Street corridor near the Dan Ryan Expressway. Among other improvements, IDOT’s proposed construction would allow Metra SouthWest Service commuter trains to use the LaSalle Street station as the downtown terminal, reducing conflict and overcrowding with Amtrak and BN passengers at Union Station. IDOT thinks it can get its project approved even if consideration is delayed until after the Trump inauguration, but Chicago aldermen rushed their TIF designation through because they believe Obama’s DOT may approve their grant application, while anticipating Trump administration resistance to funding inner city transit construction.

        

Will Labor Secretary Designee Pudzer Push Equal Pay Rights?

President elect Trump’s daughter Ivanka repeatedly promised during the Trump campaign to fight for equal pay rights for women in the labor force. The Obama administration’s EEOC has promulgated a new reporting requirement for all businesses with over 100 employees, expanding earnings and hours worked reporting requirements from a 200 cell report to a 4,000 cell report due on the third quarter EEOC snapshot date. Trump’s Labor Secretary Designee, fast food executive Andrew Pudzer, on the other hand, is pledged to “save small businesses from the crushing burdens of unnecessary regulations that are stunting job growth and suppressing wages.”

According to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, Pudzer is “someone who opposes an increase in the minimum wage, opposes the overtime rule that would raise middle class wages, and whose businesses have repeatedly violated labor laws,” and that Trump’s naming Pudzer to the Labor Department post is “the surest sign yet that the next cabi9net will be looking out for the billionaires and special interests, instead of America’s working class.” It will be interesting to see whether the Obama administrations third quarter 2017 wage and hour reporting requirement will survive, because of Ivanka’s influence, or die in the Pudzer DOL regulatory environment.

Infrastructure Needs To Challenge Secretary Designee Chao

Shepherding President Elect Trump’s promised ten year $1 trillion infrastructure construction program through a deficit shy and spending averse Congress will be the biggest challenge faces by Trump’s Transportation Secretary Designee Elaine Chao, wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. While Chao’s past experiences as Secretary of Labor and Deputy Secretary of Transportation, as well as her service on the boards of directors of construction giants Parsons and Vulcan Materials give her a depth of understanding of infrastructure and politics not often combined in the cabinet job she is designated to hold, bridging the gap between anticipated federal transportation revenue streams and the projected cost of the nation’s infrastructure construction and repair needs will likely be her greatest obstacle.

According to a recent joint study by the American Association of State Transportation Officials and the American Association of Port Authorities, American freight infrastructure alone needs investment of nearly $258 billion. Getting Congressional approval of the motor fuel tax increases, proposed $137 billion in tax credits to spur private-public partnership investment in toll roads and other revenue generating projects, in addition to the $10.3 billion Congress just approved for water resources infrastructure, and the continuing resolution freezing Highway Trust fund spending at 2016 levels could be an insurmountable hurdle, even for Chao.

House Democratic leaders, including House Transportation Committee ranking member Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), have been quick to point out the schizophrenic nature of the Congressional Republican response to President Elect Trump’s promises of substantially larger, and construction job cresting, infrastructure investments by the federal government: “Looks like House Republicans missed the memo from President Elect Trump on boosting transportation infrastructure investment. Instead of carrying out the promise of rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges and transit systems,” DeFazio said, “the Continuing Resolution ignores the FAST Act transportation funding levels that were approved a year ago, resulting in a $2.4 billion reduction in transportation investment, which will impact next Spring’s construction season. … House Republicans like to talk about this ‘big league’ trillion dollar transportation plan they supposedly want to pass. Cuts like these make you question whether they are serious about it.”

The negative impact of federal appropriations significantly below the levels promised in last year’s FAST Act is already being felt in state capitals like Topeka, where Kansas DOT put 10 more highway construction projects on hold, in addition to the 24 projects dropped from its bidding schedule last month due to increasing budget shortfalls.

It looks like deferred maintenance could be a continuing headache for Chao once her expected quick Senate confirmation becomes a reality.

Trump Names Elaine Chao As Transportation Secretary Appointee

President Elect Trump has named Elaine Chao, former Deputy Secretary of Transportation and Secretary of Labor under earlier Republican administrations, and wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as his choice to head the Trump administration USDOT. Senator McConnell’s immediate reaction to the appointment and forthcoming Senate confirmation vote was “No, I’m not going to recuse myself.”

Associated General Contractors of America and American Road and Transportation Builders Association both applauded the selection. House Transportation Chairman Bill Schuster and USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx also joined the chorus of praise for Trump’s choice. Trump’s announcement charged Chao with carrying out “our mission to rebuild our infrastructure in a fiscally responsible manner.” No explanation was forthcoming regarding the discrepancy between Trump’s campaign promise of $1 trillion for infrastructure investment over the next ten years, and his current transition website posting slashing that figure to a mere $550 billion.

Pence, Trump and United Technologies Keep Carrier Jobs In Indiana

Without releasing the details of the arrangement, the Trump transition team has announced, and Carrier has confirmed, an agreement that would preserve in Indiana 1,000 of the jobs Carrier earlier proposed moving to Mexico. Reports indicate that the State of Indiana has offered new incentives to Carrier to keep 1,000 jobs in the state, and that Trump pressured Carrier’s parent United Technologies with threats of losing a significant portion of its $5.6 billion in annual defense contracting revenue if Carrier’s proposed move to Mexico was put into effect.

Missouri Infrastructure Budget Faces Deep Pothole In Motor Fuel Tax Shortfall

Illinois is not the only state where increasing vehicle fuel economy and tax averse state legislators are combining to leave secondary roads and bridges in deplorable condition. Missouri road fund revenue has plummeted from $1.3 billion in 2009 to only $800 million anticipated in 2017, leaving 30% of the state’s less traveled roads in poor condition, and 22% of the state’s bridges in poor repair or weight restricted.

A particular sore spot is the need to rebuild 200 miles of interstate between St. Louis and Kansas City, at an estimated cost of $2 billion to $4 billion. Missouri’s motor fuel tax rate of $0.17/gallon has not gone up in 20 years, and voters are opposed to any increase at present. Combined with more miles per gallon from modern cars and trucks, the revenue decline for road and bridge maintenance has been dramatic. Last year the Missouri House failed to even take up a bill to increase the motor fuel tax rate.

Declining revenues have already forced MDOT to cut the highway maintenance workforce by 20%, close repair shops and sell off highway maintenance equipment, shifting $100 million to bandage the highway repair budget. Legislators have even suggested transferring many miles of back roads from state to county responsibility, but such a move would undoubtedly increase maintenance costs per mile of road by denying county and local governments the advantages of statewide quantity purchases of paving materials.

No one has yet figured out how to build and repair more miles of road with fewer dollars.

Texas Federal Court Blocks Mandatory Overtime for High Salaried Workers

The U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has issued a nationwide injunction against enforcement of the Obama administration’s rule, set to go into effect December 1, that would mandated overtime pay for salaried employees earning less than $47,426.00 annually, as opposed to the current overtime standard of $23,660.00. The court ruled that the Department of Labor regulation was unauthorized by the Fair Labor Standards Act because it substituted salary level alone for consideration of employment duties in determining whether salaried employees are or are not hourly workers.

The court also held the Department of Labor lacks authority to insert automatic upward salary adjustments in the new rule, because the automatic adjustment provision eliminates the notice and comment period required by the Act before implementing new regulations.

Twenty state governments and fifty business organizations brought the lawsuit challenging the rule. It seems highly unlikely that the Trump administration Department of Labor will pursue efforts to enforce or revise the rule after inauguration of the new President in January.