Strange Political Bedfellows

It's interesting sometimes how people with entirely different political persuasions can be on the same side, the right side, of an issue. That's the case with the Traffic.com scam. Both conservative Republican Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and liberal Democrat Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) are on exactly the same side of this issue, trying to shut down the monopoly set up for Traffic.com years ago by former House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster and his partners (including former USDOT Sec. Mineta and sitting DHS Dep. Sec. Jackson).

Last Thursday Hatch sent a very pointed letter to USDOT Secretary Mary Peters, demanding an explanation for why the Traffic.com monopoly was continuing despite his and other legislators' efforts back in 2005 to add wording in the big transportation bill (SAFETEA-LU) to open up the Transportation Technology Innovation and Demonstration (TTID) program to competition.

I met with Sen. Hatch's legislative assistant during my trip to DC back in January, and pointed out -- much to his surprise -- that the monopoly was continuing despite the new language Hatch added in SAFETEA-LU to break it. Sen. Hatch shortly thereafter sent his initial letter to Secretary Peters asking why the monopoly was continuing, and her response essentially ignored the fundamental question in that inquiry. Thus the rationale for last Thursday's letter, which leaves very little wiggle room for another non-responsive response.

Rep. Weiner has also been deeply involved in this issue. Back on June 20, 2005, when the conference committee was finalizing the language for SAFETEA-LU, Rep. Weiner teamed with ten of his House colleagues to send a letter to the Chairmen and Ranking Minority Members of the primary House and Senate transportation committees, urging the leaders to adopt the Senate's (that is, Hatch's) language for the TTID (earlier called ITIP) program. On July 29, 2005, after the passage of SAFETEA-LU, both Hatch and Weiner issued press releases (Hatch's release, Weiner's release) highlighting their efforts to break the Traffic.com monopoly.

Unfortunately, at that time they didn't take into account -- because they didn't know -- that the monopoly would continue undeterred due to strong support for it from top USDOT management because Mineta and Jackson were and are, in fact, hidden partners with Shuster in the whole Traffic.com scheme.

Now, after both individuals are long departed, the USDOT led by Ms. Peters is still biasing its efforts toward the monopoly and against open competition.

What does that tell you?

Jerry