Chrysler and Fiat Chairman Sergio Marchionne should be expecting a call from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

No, his company’s not in trouble – far from it.

Touring the floor of the Washington Auto Show this morning, the departing DOT leader gushed about the company’s Super Bowl ad for Dodge Ram trucks — the one with the voice-over of a 1978 speech by the late broadcaster Paul Harvey called “So God Made a Farmer.”

“It is the most creative, clever ad that I’ve probably ever seen,” said LaHood, who, as a congressman from Peoria, Illinois, represented a largely rural district before becoming transportation secretary.

“I will probably call Mr. Marchionne” to compliment it.

And tell him the ad probably played well in Peoria.

Original post is Dodge Ram Loaded w/ Paul Harvey’s ‘God Made a Farmer:’ ‘Most Clever’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Passengers walk beneath an Amtrak sign at Union Station in Washington.

Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman had hoped for an easier ride in 2013 after Florida Republican John Mica had to relinquish the chairmanship of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Mica, who was term-limited out of the post, took great pleasure in poking fun at Amtrak’s losses from its food service and its federal subsidy.

With Pennsylvania Republican Bill Shuster in the new T&I post, Boardman had hoped for smoother track through that committee, which is due to reauthorize Amtrak this year. He was in for a rude awakening yesterday, when Shuster named California Republican Jeff Denham as the Railroad Subcommittee’s chairman.

Denham last month lit into California’s high-speed rail project at the final hearing Mica held to grill Boardman about Amtrak. Denham said he supported the project as a state senator before the cost ballooned and the state’s credit rating was downgraded.

“Let’s put it back on the ballot so that we can end the project once and for all,” Denham said then.

Denham earned his stripes chairing another T&I subcommittee that last year probed excessive spending at conferences by the General Services Administration.

Boardman today said he doesn’t know Denham too well, only having “experienced him” in the Dec. 6 hearing.

“He’s got a steep learning curve,” Boardman said in an interview following a press conference to announce a plan to buy trains for California’s rail project. “He had a history in California of what in-state issues are, but his view now has to be larger. It’s not just California parochially.”

Original post is Amtrak’s Rough Ride Renewed by Political Capital.

Courtesy North American International Auto Show

U.S, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood Speaks at the Opening Ceremony of the North American International Auto Show on Jan. 14, 2013.

If Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is stepping down imminently, he has the best poker face at the table.

LaHood today traveled to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit to speak at the show’s opening and meet with automakers in private.

Even though LaHood this year left town right after meeting with the companies, instead of walking the show floor where Chevrolet is displaying the seventh-generation Corvette, he did show up. That contrasts with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, who canceled plans to attend after announcing she’ll step down for President Barack Obama’s second term.

LaHood said even less than he’s been saying recently — which isn’t much — on whether he’ll stay for a second term.

“I don’t really have anything on that,” he said before meeting with automakers at Cobo Hall.

LaHood, one of two Republicans whom Obama appointed to his Cabinet four years ago, declined to comment on whether he’s been asked to stay or whether he wants to.

In the meeting with foreign and domestic automakers and their trade associations, no one asked LaHood about his plans, according to three people who were in the meeting and who declined to be named because the meeting was private.

LaHood spoke at the gathering along with Sens, Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat, and Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, and Rep. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, who will help lead the congressional auto caucus this year.

If LaHood departs or is replaced, he’d leave a growing list of unfinished business that includes some of what he says are his top priorities.

The Transportation Department punted the last week of December on a rule that would require backup cameras in all new cars. LaHood today said the rule is still under discussion with no new date to issue it. He wouldn’t proclaim it dead or alive.

“We’re having lots of discussions about it,” he said. Asked about when it will come out, he said, “I don’t know. The answer really
is I don’t know. I hope soon.”

LaHood’s agency also hasn’t issued promised distracted-driving guidelines for automakers on infotainment systems. There’s no date for those to be issued either, LaHood said, also remaining noncommittal on whether they’d get done.

“As far as I’m concerned,” they’re still coming, he said.

In his absence, Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari and National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator David Strickland walked the auto show floor today, meeting with companies and hearing their pitches about fuel economy and new safety technology.

Original post is LaHood Skips Corvette at Auto Show, Avoids Questions About Own Future by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jim Mone/AP Photo

The interlock ignition system which requires the driver to blow into a tube to prove sobriety before driving.

AAA, the motorist group with more than 53 million members, is endorsing the National Transportation Safety Board’s call for mandatory use of ignition interlock devices for all drunken-driving offenders.

AAA issued its statement five days before New Year’s Eve, which the group calls the deadliest day on U.S. roads. Interlocks require a driver to blow into a tube to prove his or her sobriety before starting a car, and are required for first-time DUI offenders in about one-third of states.

The NTSB two weeks ago called for mandatory interlocks, something Mothers Against Drunk Driving began pushing in 2006.

It’s part of what AAA has said is a concerted effort to have a louder voice on policy. The group last month warned that an ethanol-blended gasoline called E15 – which the Obama administration supports – may confuse consumers and damage car engines.

Interlocks, for which offenders pay installation costs and a monthly fee, should only be required for repeat offenders and those whose blood-alcohol content is egregiously high, says a coalition of restaurants and alcoholic beverage distributors. That group, which won’t disclose its members, is the chief voice of opposition to interlocks for first-time offenders.

It’s up to states to enact traffic-safety laws, including those requiring interlocks. But pushing at a national level for change is a tried-and-true model with notches of success for initiatives including mandatory seat belt use, lowering the limit for drunk driving to .08 blood-alcohol content, and raising the legal drinking age to 21.

Original post is Ignition Interlocks for First-Time DUI Offenders? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

A U.S. Postal Service (USPS) employee pushes a cart full of mail from a postal delivery truck in New York on Nov. 15, 2012.

This isn’t the kind of help the U.S. Postal Service had in mind when it asked Congress to pass a bill affecting it before adjourning for the year.

The House, which hasn’t acted on a broad postal reform bill proposed almost a year ago, today ended a requirement that financial institutions send customers a privacy notice each year — via U.S. Mail — unless they have changed privacy policies.

“Not only will this legislation end the redundant mailings, but it also will make it more likely that people will pay closer attention to important mailings they receive from their financial institutions because they are receiving fewer,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, a Missouri Republican, said.

One postman’s redundant mailings are another’s lifeline, if you happen to work for the Postal Service.

First-class mail is the service’s most profitable kind and also the type that’s been hit hardest by the movement toward e-mail and e-billing by, among others, banks. Still, banks belong to advocacy groups trying to save the Postal Service from the precipice of insolvency.

Luetkemeyer, in a statement last year, called on the service to “adapt to meet the challenges of the future” while also chiding them not to cut service to his rural Missouri constituents.

Original post is Junk-Mail Relief — Bad for Business by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

A Transportation Security Administration officer demonstrates how to walk through the ProVision Millimeter Wave advanced imaging technology machine at the TSA Systems Integration Facility in Arlington, Virginia.

True to its word, the Transportation Security Administration followed through on its pledge to boycott today’s House transportation hearing about the agency’s impact on commercial air travel, evoking strong words if not subpoena threats from committee leaders.

Committee Chairman John Mica called TSA Administrator John Pistole’s absence “very sad.” TSA airport screeners now pose more risk than protection to airline passengers, and the agency seems most interested in preserving its bureaucracy, Mica said.

“We need to be closing down TSA as we know it and instituting a safer, more efficient, less bureaucratic system,” the Florida Republican said.

Screeners are “shaking down grandmothers, veterans, people with disabilities” and stealing from passengers’ bags, he said.

Rep. Tom Petri, the Wisconsin Republican who leads the aviation subcommittee, said the agency is on a “path of non-transparency and arrogance.”

“Their actions today show why the public is so frustrated with the TSA,” he said.

Pistole said Nov. 27 that neither he nor anyone else from the agency would appear at the hearing, saying the transportation committee doesn’t have jurisdiction over his agency. Mica, Petri and Bill Shuster, the Pennsylvania Republican who will become committee chairman in January, say they have a right to monitor the agency because it’s part of the aviation system they oversee.

Pistole, in his statement, said his agency would continue working with committees of jurisdiction, noting it’s appeared 38 times at hearings in the past two years and given hundreds of private briefings.

Written with Bernard Kohn 

Original post is TSA’s Hearing Boycott `Sad:’ Mica by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Union Station in Washington.

Rep. John Mica may not be able to yank the Transportation Security Administration’s chain during his final month as chairman of the House transportation committee.

But he’s still got Amtrak.

Mica, the Florida Republican who ceded his bid to remain chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee past his term limits, hauled Amtrak Chief Executive Officer Joe Boardman before the panel today for the fourth time this year. And he announced two more hearings on what he refers to as  the “Soviet-style” Amtrak for December.

“Everybody’s focused on the fiscal cliff,” Mica said. “Sometimes people give me a hard time for focusing on Amtrak. But we have put $1.4 billion into Amtrak in the past year. We do have a responsibility for taxpayer dollars.”

Today’s hearing was benign by Mica’s standards, as he praised Amtrak for its work recovering from the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy in New York. Yet he noted he didn’t purchase any food on his train trip to the Big Apple yesterday because taxpayers would have lost money on anything he bought.

At an August hearing, Mica brought hamburgers along to illustrate his criticism of Amtrak’s losses on food and beverage service. He followed that up with a press conference outside a McDonald’s, during which he pointed out the cost difference between the fare there and on Amtrak and, according to Politico, yelled at a passing train, “Please don’t buy the hamburgers!”

Today’s latest Amtrak hammering comes a day after TSA Administrator John Pistole sent word to Mica that neither he nor his agency will show up for a hearing critical of the security body tomorrow. Pistole said Mica’s panel, even though it helped create the TSA after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, doesn’t have jurisdiction over the agency.

Who has jurisdiction over Amtrak isn’t in question. So look for Boardman to return to Capitol Hill on Dec. 6 and 13 when Mica holds hearings on high-speed rail and Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.

Original post is Amtrak CEO Running on Lame-Duck House Chairman’s Borrowed Time by Political Capital.

Photograph by Tim Rue/Bloomberg

The Tesla Motors Inc.'s Model X vehicle at its unveiling in Hawthorne, California.

In last night’s debate, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney singled out four recipients of U.S. Energy Department aid as he lumped such companies together as “losers.”

Romney was essentially repeating a refrain he’d used last week at a campaign event in Pennsylvania, except that in the debate, he said a “friend” had used the term “losers.”

Romney was criticizing a George W. Bush-era program intended to spur the development of greener cars and energy sources. Ford Motor Co., the only major U.S. automaker that didn’t receive a federal bailout, and Nissan Motor Co., which hasn’t had an unprofitable quarter since 2010, received most of the money from the same program that funded Tesla Motors Inc. and Fisker Automotive Inc., two companies Romney named.

Tesla said yesterday, just hours before the debate, that it would begin repaying the U.S. government early for its $465 million loan.

“Don’t forget, you put $90 billion, like 50 years’ worth of breaks, into — into solar and wind, to Solyndra and Fisker and Tesla and Ener1,” Romney said as he attacked Obama’s tax policies. “I mean, I had a friend who said you don’t just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers, all right? So this… is not the kind of policy you want to have if you want to get America energy secure.”

Does that make Ford and Nissan losers by default?

Nissan and Ford wouldn’t touch that question directly.

“I never heard the presidential candidate use the word Nissan,” spokesman David Reuter said.

“Our ’One Ford Plan’ is working,” said Ford spokeswoman Christin Baker. “The company has had 12 consecutive profitable quarters. Our ongoing introduction of new products is leading in quality, fuel efficiency, safety, smart design and value.”

But it’s got to sting for two establishment companies to be lumped together with two failed enterprises and two start-ups.

The startups – Tesla and Fisker – wouldn’t consider themselves losers either. In addition to its loan announcement, Tesla said yesterday it expects to be cash-flow positive by the end of November with a quarterly profit in 2013. Fisker, which was cut off from drawing down more of its loan last year after failing to meet milestones, just raised more than $100 million from private investors to keep developing a second car.

Ford, which got $5.6 billion in loans, has been trumpeting its new C-Max, which will only come in hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric versions in the U.S. The company used U.S. money to develop its EcoBoost engine, part of its strategy for increasing  fuel efficiency in its cars and trucks. Customers can even buy the engine in the F-150, the best-selling passenger vehicle in country.

While Romney complained about Obama being too generous with taxpayer money for green energy, companies including Chrysler LLC have complained about the administration not giving out billions of dollars it could have lent. Chrysler and General Motors Co. both pulled their loan applications after delays in decisions from regulators. Start-ups Bright Automotive Inc. and Carbon Motors Corp. complained that their applications had fallen victim to politics earlier this year after the Energy Department loan programs became a political football following Solyndra’s bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, Romney should be familiar with failed automakers from his youth when dad George was CEO of American Motors Corp.

Not familiar with that company’s cars?

That’s because it was absorbed by Chrysler a quarter century ago.

An automotive loser, so to speak.

Written with Alan Ohnsman

Original post is Romney’s `Losers’ Overlook Ford, Nissan — and Tesla Repaying by Political Capital.

Photograph by John Quinn/Bloomberg

A letter carrier in Avon, Ohio.

They’re part of what some lawmakers call a bloated workforce, and they face a stereotype that goes along with the words “postal worker.”

But today in Washington, postal workers — namely those who deliver the mail — were recognized as heroes.

These six carriers, who according to an unofficial Postal Service motto let neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night keep them from delivering mail, were recognized by the National Association of Letter Carriers for saving lives.

One saved a boy from a rip tide, another rescued a woman using a wheelchair from an attack by three pit bulls. A third noticed a spate of natural gas leaks in buildings along his route, leading the gas utility serving Athens, Ohio, to replace more than 17,000 feet of pipe.

The carriers are among the 180,000 who deliver mail in U.S. cities.

”We know that many of the most impressive acts go unreported,” said Fredric Rolando, the letter carriers’ president.

Tomorrow, it’s back to tussling over the future of the Postal Service, which wants to make cost cuts the union doesn’t support.

Today, it’s just about heroes.

Original post is Postal Service Heroes: Neither Rip Tides, nor Pit Bulls, nor Gas Leaks… by Political Capital.

Photograph by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

The Toyota Motor Corp logo at a dealership in Richmond, California.

Three years after recalling a record number of cars for defects that may cause unintended acceleration, Toyota Motor Corp. is seeking attention for something different — promoting automotive safety.

Toyota today flew top executives into Washington to promote its year-old Collaborative Safety Research Center, which it created in the wake of the recalls and ensuing storm of negative congressional and media attention.

Japanese executives, the head of the research effort, and researchers working with the center’s funding sought to dazzle that same media, as well as others from the auto industry and a table full of NASCAR team owners, with its partnerships and early research findings.

(Did you know that the median speed for crashes when people drive off the road for no apparent reason is 49 mph? That 45 percent of those people didn’t brake at all before the crash?)

Toyota, based in Toyota City, Japan, announced the creation of the U.S. center in January 2011 at the Detroit auto show. It was a sort of self-imposed plan to make amends and improve its image after its chief executive officer reluctantly appeared before U.S. Congress members.

With a $50 million budget over five years, the center’s mission is to work with universities, hospitals and U.S. regulators to rearch vehicle safety issues such as perils to teen and senior drivers and pedestrian safety.

Original post is Toyota Shows Off U.S. Safety Center Created After Record Recalls by Political Capital.