On April 15, Beth
Osborne (Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Transportation Policy) and Stockton
Williams (HUD Senior Policy
Advisor to the Office of Sustainable Communities) discussed federal funding priorities for sustainable communities. The call was
organized by Policy Link in partnership with the Local Initiatives Support
Corp., the National Housing Conference, Reconnecting America, and Smart Growth
America. A recording of the call
will soon be available on the PolicyLink website.
In
the 10 months since federal officials announced the partnership between the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Transportation
(DOT), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), progress has been made in
getting sustainable development into the 2011 federal budget and getting
existing federal programs to work together more smoothly.
HUD is the furthest ahead, winning $150 million in the final fiscal 2010 budget
for its Livable Communities Initiative. Officials are now producing a notice of
funding availability for the program and have requested another $150 million in
its proposed fiscal 2011 budget. DOT has requested more than $500 million in
the proposed budget for its sustainable development initiatives.
DOT
split the $1.5 billion available in its first round of Transportation
Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants about evenly between
transportation types including mass transit and highway projects. The winners were projects that had great
local support and a high level of planning, according to Osborne.
Williams
and Osborne hinted at a larger future for the partnership. “The whole
government should be doing this,” said Williams.