One key ingredient in the Obama administration’s effort to carve out a stronger federal role in local planning, of course, is the still-stalled six-year federal transportation bill. And Osborne — seemingly aware of the value of that legislation in removing longstanding obstacles to coordination — told the TRB meeting that “Capitol Hill has asked DOT to craft its own version of a transportation reauthorization bill,” according to ClimateWire.

A legislative outline from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who spent much of 2009 urging lawmakers to put off discussion of the next six-year bill until 2011, would be an undeniable boost to Democrats who have long urged the administration to play a more active part in solving the puzzle of long-term financing.

But the political hurdles to enacting a new federal transport bill this year remain steep, as ITS America President Scott Belcher remarked in one of today’s TRB conference sessions.

“Everybody wants to get past the elections” before passing new long-term legislation,” Belcher said, “and they want to get past the election because they don’t want to raise taxes.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi herself echoed this at the Detroit Auto Show earlier this week:

Well, there certainly has been advocacy for such a position [raising the gas tax]. It does not, certainly, have a majority in the Congress of the United States at this time. So we want to approach this in a way that is comprehensive, that certainly keeps in mind of concerns of the consumer, the concerns of the industry, and of the environment. This is not to say one idea is better than another — it’s just to say that at the present time, there are other initiatives that we have.

Pelosi wasn’t quite clear here – is the problem in the House? In the Senate? Or both? My guess is it’s both the House and the Senate, as conservative and Blue Dog Democrats are likely shying away from something that can easily be spun by Republicans as somehow damaging to voters.

But the logic of putting this off to 2011 doesn’t quite hold up. It’s unlikely that Democrats will maintain their 60 seats in the Senate, and so far they haven’t gotten serious about eliminating the filibuster. Democrats are in much better shape in the House, where there will be some losses but not enough to put Pelosi in any serious jeopardy of losing her majority (most losses will be among right-leaning Blue Dogs from the South).

And of course, the partisanship matters, because the Republicans will never vote for a tax increase, even if it is sensible and fiscally responsible policy. The best time to move on this would have been in 2009, not 2011, when Congress will be freaking out even more strongly about the deficit and when Obama will likely want to play things safe in advance of his reelection bid in 2012.

Which is unfortunate, since transportation policy is one area where a new direction is desperately needed and wanted. Many in Congress want to use the gas tax and the transportation bill to help encourage more sustainable and denser communities, partly as a strategy to address the climate crisis and reduce dependence on ever-rising oil prices. 2008 demonstrated that there was broad support for such a shift. But some states and some Senators refuse to accept that the status quo is dead and must change – the story of 2009, as we saw on a wide range of issues.

Anyone who thinks that the 20th century model of sprawl and reliance on gas-guzzling cars is still viable is nuts, and not paying attention to reality. Unfortunately Congress remains in the grip of exactly that kind of thinking, at least in enough numbers to block meaningful action. One of the top priorities for California HSR advocates in 2010 must be to push Congress to get off its ass and pass a good transportation bill that, among other things, includes a robust, stable, long-term funding source for high speed rail.