BILL REQ. #:  H-1652.4 

READ FIRST TIME 02/23/09.   

     TO THE HONORABLE BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED, AND TO THE SECRETARY OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, AND TO THE SECRETARY OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, AND TO THE SECRETARY OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES:
     We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:
     WHEREAS, All people in Washington state should have access to transportation services that not only support their basic human needs but also provide them opportunities to lead a full and meaningful life; and
     WHEREAS, Persons with special transportation needs include the elderly, children, persons with physical and other disabilities, and persons who struggle financially to support their needs and the needs of their family; and
     WHEREAS, The population of persons with special transportation needs is increasing in Washington state and is expected to increase substantially in the foreseeable future; and
     WHEREAS, Reliable mobility for persons with special transportation needs is not simply about accessing necessary medical services, it is also about experiencing and contributing to one's community, the feeling of belonging to one's community, and enjoying a quality of life that all persons should be able to enjoy; and
     WHEREAS, The Washington state legislature provides significant support to special transportation needs providers and programs that serve this community, and the Washington state legislature continues to seek ways in which to advance the coordination and efficiencies in delivery of those services; and
     WHEREAS, The Washington state legislature, despite its ongoing efforts to balance all of the needs of the citizens of this state, cannot meet the basic needs of this growing community alone; and
     WHEREAS, The Washington state legislature applauds the past and current congressional support in meeting this community's needs and is mindful of the economic challenges facing our nation; and
     WHEREAS, Notwithstanding the challenges facing this state and our nation, the Washington state legislature believes that the successful future of any community is dependent on the active participation of, and individual contributions made by, all of its citizens, for which mobility is a basic and often forgotten necessity that is not readily available to all persons;
     NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully pray that Congress will recognize and respond to this dire need for increased support of these transportation programs and services by increasing federal funding for these transportation programs and services and also by:
     (1) Encouraging greater coordination of transportation services among human service agencies, transportation agencies, and providers by enacting legislation that establishes comparable planning requirements for human service agencies as are established for use of public transit funds authorized through SAFETEA-LU, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, P.L. 109-59, or its comparable successor, and specifically modifying existing criteria to include a requirement that the award or use of Section 5311 funds (rural transportation) be dependent on a coordinated public transit and human services transportation plan;
     (2) Providing funding to support the transportation programs for homeless students required under the McKinney Vento Act, reauthorized as Title X, Part C, of the No Child Left Behind Act in January 2002, the responsibility for which currently falls on our overburdened local school districts;
     (3) Allowing for more flexibility in the use of transportation funding as it relates to special transportation needs and services, and specifically:
     (a) Subject to approval by the centers for medicare and medicaid services, allowing for the commingling of federal, state, and local special needs funding so that local communities may determine how best to provide transportation in their communities; and
     (b) Expressly authorizing the use of SAFETEA-LU funds appropriated to support special needs transportation and coordinated transportation programs to act as match funding to federal dollars allocated to states through medicaid programs as it applies to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1396a and other relevant federal statutes and regulations;
     (4) Supporting the Giving Incentives for Volunteers Everywhere (GIVE) Act of 2009, which addresses the impact of high gas prices on charitable volunteers by raising the volunteer deduction rate to seventy percent of the standard business deduction rate and by exempting from taxable income reimbursements for mileage traveled by a volunteer at the same exemption rate provided to businesses;
     (5) Allowing communities to demonstrate the potential of coordinated transportation without being penalized by federal rules;
     (6) Establishing consistent transportation definitions, performance measurements, and reporting requirements for all transportation programs, and providing funding for tracking and reporting requirements;
     (7) Directing federal agencies that support or provide transportation services to work in partnership to resolve barriers to coordinated special needs transportation, and specifically requiring that any federal regulatory proposals made by federal agencies outside of the United States department of transportation that affect nonemergency medical transportation, or any other human service transportation programs, be brought to the interagency coordinating council on accessibility and mobility for review and discussion about their impacts on coordination before these proposals are submitted to the office of management budget or released to the public for comment;
     (8) Permitting a state to test, or demonstrate on a pilot project basis, broker and cost allocation models for nonemergency medical transportation, under either a medical services or administrative services waiver, that include auditable accounting and tracking systems that ensure that funds appropriated for the medicaid brokerage program are used only for their intended purpose but which may combine and share funds, programs, or services to maximize coordination and efficiencies; and
     (9) Issuing an executive order directing the United States department of health and human services to establish rules and guidelines, and to identify any necessary specific statutory amendments, that carry out the policies of Executive Order 13330, signed into law on February 24, 2004, which:
     (a) Addresses enhancing access to transportation to improve mobility, employment opportunities, and access to community services for persons who are transportation-disadvantaged;
     (b) Finds, among other things, that transportation resources "are more costly than necessary due to inconsistent and unnecessary Federal and State program rules and restrictions" (Executive Order 13330, Section 1(a)); and
     (c) Creates the interagency transportation coordinating council on access and mobility with the following purposes, which your Memorialists agree are critical but respectfully believe have not been achieved, and cannot be achieved, due to unnecessary system barriers:
     (i) Promote interagency cooperation and the establishment of appropriate mechanisms to minimize duplication and overlap of federal programs and services so that transportation-disadvantaged persons have access to more transportation services;
     (ii) Facilitate access to the most appropriate, cost-effective transportation services within existing resources; and
     (iii) Encourage enhanced customer access to the variety of transportation services at all levels.
     BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable Barack Obama, President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, each member of Congress from the State of Washington, the Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation, the Secretary of the United States Department of Education, and the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.