LTD, partners prep for 2025 legislative sessions

Presenter: With the 2024 elections, Republicans take control of the federal government, while Democrats may have a supermajority in Oregon. What does that mean for Lane Transit District? At the board meeting Nov. 20:

Sam Kelly-Quattrocchi (LTD, government relations manager): My name is Sam Kelly-Quattrocchi, or Sam K-Q is totally fine. I’m your government relations manager. I’m here tonight with just a quick update on legislative affairs: state, federal, local. How are we doing? What are we working on? What to expect for the next six to eight months.

[00:00:31] President Trump winning the election, we sort of know what to expect. He was president four years ago; we have some ideas. He’s sort of talked about Project 2025, sort of hasn’t. So it’s kind of hard to get a direct idea of where his policy lands on transit, precisely.

[00:00:45] However, we did see in his past term that he did raise funding. He is from large cities; he knows how important buses are, how important transit is to his community. There’s probably going to be a focus on reducing federal guidelines and strings on these funds maybe so we may get funds easier, which requirements they cut yet to be seen.

[00:01:02] I have heard rumors of the RAISE grant being—changes to that. So we’re actually working on our RAISE grant application to get that signed, in case that loses funding or changes how it can be used. We don’t want to lose that opportunity for our area.

[00:01:14] Congresswoman Hoyle won her reelection seat. She’s a great friend of transit, great friend of Oregon, been down here several times. Looking forward to working with her again and her team.

[00:01:22] So taking a step to the ‘25 appropriations: In the two bills, in the Transit and Housing and Urban Design, T-HUD: The Senate-side bill has $21.3 billion for public transit. The House side has $19.6 billion. So there’s a pretty big gap, $1.7 billion difference there, that they’re going to need to reconcile and come together on before they can pass a budget. So we’ll be watching the next month closely.

[00:01:46] A lot of exciting things to come out of that, for sure. Included in that T-HUD bill is an earmark for LTD. Earmarks, we love them. They’re fairly straightforward funding, line-item projects for communities. So our earmark is looking at EV charging for non-revenue vehicles. So that’s an admin vehicles out here, some of the RideSource vehicles, that’s currently in that bill. If it passes, it should go through and we should receive those funds.

[00:02:11] Federally, again working with the American Public Trans association, APTA, BUS Coalition, Community Transportation Association of America, lots of great groups staying involved with their lobbying work legislative work. Jameson’s actively involved on some of these boards, some of their meetings. So they’re very helpful to be a part of.

[00:02:30] Jameson Auten (LTD CEO): I just want to add in, I was in the industry during the previous administration and at the federal level, transportation is usually bipartisan.

[00:02:39] I remember the FTA administrator during that time was named Jane Williams. Big, big friend of transit; still goes to all the transit conferences—she was on the advisory board for one of our consultants that does our strategic planning—a big friend, big friend of public transportation.

[00:02:58] So I don’t anticipate a lot from FTA side. I think there’ll be a change in leadership. There may be some loosening of some regs. There may be not as much money for electric vehicles coming out as we saw the last four years.

[00:03:15] But I think that we’ll still be moving forward. I think your point is well taken that the incoming president is from urban environments and understands when transit systems shut down, economies shut down. And conversely, that party also understands that rural transportation is important, so I don’t anticipate that.

[00:03:33] Presenter: LTD joins with other local agencies and governments in lobbying the federal government.

[00:03:40] Sam Kelly-Quattrocchi (LTD, government relations manager): We’ll mention United Front. So, this is our group federal lobbying in Lane County. So its current members are Lane County, cities of Springfield, Eugene, LTD ourselves, Willamalane Parks and Rec, 4J School District and Springfield School Districts.

The goal of this group is that any money for our community is good money and we lobby in D.C. together every year. Other members of that have included U of O in the past. I believe some of the utility boards were there at one time. They kind of come and go, but the idea again is group efforts and showing the need for our community while we’re in D.C. together.

[00:04:11] As we come together, staff are meeting throughout the year to develop ‘The Book,’ as we call it. This is our artifact we leave behind at each of our meetings.

[00:04:19] This group’s been together for just shy of 40 years, with again that mentality of, ‘Any money for the region is good money.’ We work to sort of hash things out before we’re in D.C. We never want to be fighting in front of a legislator about funding or opportunities.

[00:04:32] So we’re talking about who’s applying for which funds, why are you applying for them, how can we help? Are there opportunities to work in tandem, work in parallel, or if we’re both going to apply, how do we differentiate ourselves enough to not take funds from each other?

[00:04:45] I think an example for the coming years from my work, we’ll be working with Willamalane on their rangers and our PSOs (Public Safety Officers), our officers, recognizing them as Public Safety Officers as the same caliber of police. More often than not, they’re not considered that and caliber and funding can be challenging. So that’ll be a group effort to kind of get that recognition that they’ve deserved in their hard work.

[00:05:04] So in this trip, we go for about three or four days. We’ll meet with the big three, so Sen. Wyden, Sen. Merkley, Congresswoman Hoyle, those are always very, very fortunate, great meetings, and then we’ll hold department meetings: FTA; we’ll meet with FEMA; the governor has an office out there; and then there’ll be a chance maybe to slip away and watch meetings the cities are having or the counties are having with folks that may not be a direct transit tie. But I’ll get a chance to be there, maybe back them up, support their initiatives, or just take furious notes to bring back to LTD about what’s happening in our region.

[00:05:36] Presenter: Turning to the state government in Salem:

[00:05:42] Sam Kelly-Quattrocchi (LTD, government relations manager): There’s one kind of key race left in the House, but Senate-side Democrats looking like they’re having a supermajority, which for Oregon is three-fifths, which means they can pass revenue bills on their own without any Republican support.

[00:05:54] The House is down to a single seat in District 22. A couple days ago, it was a single-vote difference. I think as of five o’clock last night, it’s 123 votes with the Democratic candidate in the lead. So if that goes through, that would be a Democratic supermajority in the House as well.

[00:06:11] House/Senate/governor, so kind of the polar opposite of our federal government; Oregon being the fully Democratic side, which could lead to some interesting federal-state challenges and conversations.

[00:06:21] ‘Legislative Days’ have been going on. So in September, the legislature met. They held three days of staff meetings of all their committees. There’ll be a second one of those in early December and we should see a few bills start dropping then, and that’ll be a pretty exciting time.

[00:06:35] Priorities for the session: Housing and infrastructure, those are the governor’s top two right now. In the short session this year, infrastructure had to lead towards housing, so it was roads, sewer, stormwater, electricity. We need infrastructure to build the housing there to get to her goal of 30,000 housing units per year.

[00:06:51] The other big one is transportation. So every eight years, Oregon goes through a massive transportation package and we’re due for one this year in 2025. Already folks are starting to kind of posture where they are, what their funding needs and what their ask is going to be.

[00:07:04] Counties are looking at bridges on infrastructure, cities likewise looking at roads. Everyone’s kind of putting out their numbers, their needs for improvement, what it looks like. And that’s kind of the field LTD is going to step into as well. We are part of that package.

[00:07:17] In 2017, the last package is when STIF (Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund) was created. That’s our payroll tax that funds the vast majority of what we do. STIF is due for a reexamination and probably an increase.

[00:07:26] The Joint Committee on Transportation came through all the counties this year. Their stop in Lane was back in early July, where numerous nonprofits spoke about the benefits of transit, how they use those STIF dollars, why it’s important to them. So a lot of folks are seeing STIF as being a great tool for transit, for equity, and for transportation.

[00:07:44] I think obviously we’ll be seeing a STIF increase or at least a maintaining of STIF and protecting of STIF. Transit requires these as it’s very important for the work we do.

[00:07:53] Transit providers in the Oregon Transit Association (OTA) are very closely aligned and working together. We meet weekly right now to prep for that. I think LTD is in a great spot to help lead these conversations because we are big like TriMet, but we’re not with the problems and issues TriMet faces. We’re still relatively working well together, cohesive, and I get a chance to kind of show what big dollars can do and help out widely in the community. And there’s definitely a need to include rural and smaller transit this session.

[00:08:19] Road user fee is being talked about more and more as sort of gas tax becomes more challenging, as you see more electric vehicles, less folks paying the gas tax. There is a current optional road user fee, so you could opt into it right now if you wanted to, but a broadening of that—maybe a requirement of that.

[00:08:34] Presenter: The agency partners with the Lane Area Commission on Transportation, called Lane ACT.

[00:08:40] Jameson Auten (LTD CEO): On the state side, we are having conversations with Trimet. Sam said it, I think accurately, that we’re kind of uniquely positioned to have a bigger voice in Salem, I believe, because of our service area and what it looks like and the relationships that we have with our jurisdictions.

[00:08:57] So I think that’s important and that we go to Lane ACT and we participate there and make sure that we’re all on the same page.

[00:09:04] Presenter: LTD also nurtures its relationships with local government and the community.

[00:09:10] Sam Kelly-Quattrocchi (LTD, government relations manager): We’re working very closely with our neighborhood groups, especially in the city of Eugene. Staff are attending those meetings, listening, asking questions, being involved. Chambers of Commerce, great local partners as well. Counties beyond Eugene Springfield—engage in those communities, and then in the years to come, working closer with our Tribal groups and forming those relationships as well.

[00:09:28] Presenter: LTD sees hope for bipartisan agreement on transit funding, and perhaps an opportunity to showcase its rural services and partnerships.