This month’s election was small, but highly charged and may be a precursor for a wild and woolly 2010 election season. The aggregate industry’s resident political junkie, Pam Whitted, National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association’s vice president of government affairs, gave us her take on how things in D.C. are likely to shake out.

What did we learn from yesterday’s elections?
The American public is upset. The number-one issue for them is the economy and jobs. The results in the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia and the congressional races in New York and California sends a caution flag up for incumbents regardless of party. The American public is saying, “We want you to focus on the economy, if you don’t we’re going to go to the polls and fire you.” I also don’t think you can interpret too much from these elections. It is a snapshot-in-time result. A year is a lifetime in politics; anything can happen in the next year.

What do these results tell you about how 2010 will play out, as it affects aggregate industry?
If you look at the results coming out of last night, the economy was the dominant issue and it is clear that the Republicans benefited from that. Exit polls showed that 89% of New Jersey voters and 85% of Virginia voters worry about the nation’s economic direction over the next year. To the extent that Congress is concentrating on and passing legislation that is not dealing with the economy and the creation of jobs, they will suffer in 2010. We are starting to see an interesting development, and you saw it in New York, where you had a Republican candidate, a conservative candidate and a Democratic candidate. There are a lot of incumbents that are finding themselves challenged on both the right and the left. Look at Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas. She’s being challenged in a primary by somebody who is more liberal and she’s a moderate Democrat, and she’s being challenged by a Republican. In Utah, Robert Bennett, who is the incumbent senator, is being challenged on the right. It will continue to be a Republican seat, but he is being challenged by more conservatives for spending too much money.

Would more conservatives on Capitol Hill mean less money for the transportation industry?
Right. If you look at Virginia, transportation was an issue. [Republican] Bob McDonnell won and he had a plan, but his plan avoided any user-fee increase on gasoline. [Democrat] Creigh Deeds was talking about an increase in the gas tax. The good thing about it was that transportation was an important issue. The bad news is that the idea of a user-fee increase on gasoline has become so politicized and partisan that it is going to be very hard for Congress to increase it in the next year.

Are there other things they can do?
There are a whole bunch of options that have been presented by the two commissions that looked at this. The interest groups have all presented options. Bob McDonnell came up with interesting proposals; I don’t know how realistic they are. In Congress, there’s been a proposal to tax the oil futures transactions. An oil import fee has been discussed. Except for increasing the gas tax, which would bring in enough money to fill the gap between what is going to come into the highway trust fund and what is needed, it is going to take a bunch of those options. There’s no one magic bullet.

Are there key 2010 races for the industry?
As far as the House goes, with everybody up, our political action committee set a budget at the beginning of the cycle and focus on committees that deal with transportation and on some of the other issues of concern to us. We try to support leadership and members who have voted positively on issues of importance to the aggregates industry. We look at open races and take recommendations from our members. In the Senate, we are focused on those members who seek re-election and serve on the public works and environmental committee, the health committee, appropriations, and finance. Blanche Lincoln is one that we are looking at very closely. We’re looking at the Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) race. He has been very supportive of the industry on transportation and the accurate definition of minerals. We’re looking closely at David Vitter (R-La.), who’s a pretty moderate Republican in the South. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is in a race we are looking at. She is very instrumental on transportation and minerals definition. I understand there is a candidate who declared today in that race. We supported her, but we’re looking very closely at that because on some issues like climate change, she’s kind of off the map.

How do you assign importance to each issue?
We have a key-vote system and apply double weight to transportation issues. Our members have indicated that that is the number-one issue for them. We key-vote other issues and give them a lifetime percentage score. That influences how we decide who we will contribute to.

How do you assess challengers?
We’ve developed a questionnaire that we ask them to fill it out if they are interested in having a Rocpac contribution. We look at where they stand on the issues. We also check with our members and state executives. We do some real checking around before we make contributions, particularly to challengers who we are less familiar with.

What are the wildcards that could shift the political landscape between now and the 2010 elections?
The economy. If the economy does a turnaround and improves, if our businesses improve and production increases, the Democrats will probably maintain their majority and could even grow it. If the economy and the unemployment rate are stable or flat, and that’s what we’re predicting for production as far as aggregates go, the majority in power is going to suffer at the polls. The real change factor here is the economy and the unemployment rate.

Will that be a factor in the primaries?
Some primaries start as early as February and some are as late as September. I’m inclined to think it is going to be playing out throughout the year. You’ll see most of it in November. But, there are a lot of primary challenges. There are people that you wouldn’t have expected in a million years to have problems, like [Democratic Rep.] John Tanner in Tennessee, he’s going to have a real race. The people who are really going to have to be looking out and need to be solidifying their bases are the blue-dog Democrats, conservative or moderate Democrats. There are about 81 seats where Democrats were elected in districts that were carried by [2008 Republican presidential nominee John] McCain. Of that, about 42 are really competitive; those are the ones you have to be looking at. In the House, they’ve already had a controversial vote on climate-change legislation. A lot of moderate Democrats say, “We walked the plank on that, don’t make us do that on healthcare and on other things. Let the Senate act first.”

How is the 2010 election influencing the transportation reauthorization efforts?
Not well. It used to be that roads and highways weren’t partisan. But the current tone up on the Hill, whether it is because of issues like healthcare, which create such deeply felt beliefs or climate change where you have real believers, you’ve got a very partisan atmosphere up there. As a result, the Republicans have gotten religion on spending. They don’t want to see any new spending that is not paid for. And the Democrats, who generally are more willing to spend more on infrastructure improvements and highway bills, aren’t going to give the Republicans any kind of political ammo. So you’re in a standoff. I don’t think it is going to happen next year. That’s going to affect the transportation reauthorization bill because the problem has been and continues to be how are we going to fund the necessary spending that is required to meet the needs of the system. They talk now of front-loading a bill. What it sounds like is paying for the first two years out of general funds and then making the tough choices on funding at a later date. We don’t know what that means yet because it has not been clarified. But that would put the decisions on money after the 2010 elections. That is when, in a lame-duck session, you can get Congress to increase the gas tax.