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In January 1999, Vice President Al Goredeclared war on sprawl. Like many wars, thisone has in fact been going on undeclared forsome time, with the government covertly sup-plying funds and technical support to sup-posed grassroots organizations.Leading the charge in the war on sprawl isthe Environmental Protection Agency. EPA’slegal authority over urban land-use planning istenuous at best. Yet under two grant-makingprograms—the Transportation Partners pro-gram and the Smart Growth Network—theagency has laid the groundwork for a majorpower grab by giving millions of dollars tononprofit lobbying groups to build public sup-port for the war on sprawl. With the support of these organizations, Vice President Gore andEPA hope to use federal funding and regulato-ry authority to dramatically change thelifestyles of most Americans.The federal government should not subsi-dize one side of a public policy debate; doing soundermines the very essence of democracy.Nor should government agencies fund non-profit organizations that exist primarily tolobby other government agencies. Congressshould shut down the federal government’santi-sprawl lobbying activities and resist thetemptation to engage in centralized socialengineering.
Smart Growth at the Federal Trough
 EPA’s Financing of the Anti-Sprawl Movement 
by Peter Samuel and Randal O’Toole
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Peter Samuel is the editor of 
Toll Roads Newsletter
and has worked on EPA policies with the George C. Marshall Institute. Randal O’Toole is the executive director of the Thoreau Institute and an adjunct scholar at theCato Institute.
Executive Summary
No. 361November 24, 1999
 
The War on the Suburbs
The 20th century has seen a massivemigration of Americans from the centralcities, where most Americans lived in 1900, tothe suburbs, where two-thirds of urbanAmericans and nearly half of all Americanslive today. This migration was initiallycheered by urban elites, who viewed the citiesas crowded, dirty, and responsible for thecycle of poverty that kept many people uned-ucated and hungry.
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As more people left the cities, especiallyfollowing World War II, interest groupsthreatened by this migration began to coa-lesce around claims that suburbs were vacu-ous and insipid. Suburban residential areaswere derided as “ticky tacky,”
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supermarketsand other suburban shopping areas weretermed “strip developments,” and the sub-urbs themselves were referred to as areas of “blight” and “sprawl.” The automobile,which brought the suburbs within reach of most people, received its share of abuse. Thedemands of the automobile were paving overAmerica,
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people said, and the open road wasbeing replaced by gridlock and four-hourcommutes.
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Many of the people making these claimsviewed the suburbs as threats to their eco-nomic futures.
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Central city officials considered everynew suburban resident to be a subtrac-tion from their city’s population andtax base;
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Transit agency officials realized thatpeople living in low-density suburbswere less likely to support transit thanpeople living in dense urban areas.
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Downtown businesses and propertyowners considered suburban shoppingmalls to be unfair competition withtheir businesses.These groups readily joined with environ-mentalists worried about the loss of primefarmland to try to curb urban sprawl.
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Thecities sought control over the suburbsthrough annexation, city-county consolida-tions, and most recently regional govern-ments. But except for a few places such asPortland, Oregon, the suburbs have stub-bornly remained outside the political reachof city governments and downtown businessinterests.Enter EPA, which hopes to use its author-ity over federal spending and pollution regu-lation to transform the suburbs. Ostensibly,EPA’s goal is to reduce air pollution by reduc-ing the amount of driving that people do. Toreach that goal, EPA has endorsed the plan-ning fad known as the “New Urbanism,” andmore recently popularized as “smartgrowth.” Smart growth proposes to accom-plish several goals:
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stop the spread of low-density subur-ban development through the use of urban-growth boundaries;
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redevelop existing suburbs to higherpopulation densities, emphasizingmultifamily dwellings and row housesinstead of single-family detachedhomes;
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promote mixed-use developments andpedestrian-friendly design so that peo-ple can walk rather than drive to mar-kets;
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promote transit-oriented developmentsso that people can take transit ratherthan drive to work;
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slow the construction of highways andspend more highway money on “trafficcalming,” meaning measures thatreduce road speeds and capacities; and
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accelerate the construction of rail tran-sit systems.While the merits (or lack thereof) of smartgrowth are beyond the scope of this study, itshould be noted that all of the above policyproposals are contentious matters of debatewithin the urban planning, environmental,and economic professions.
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Dr. Randall Crane, planning professorat the University of California-Irvine,
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As more peopleleft the cities,especially follow-ing World War II,interest groupsthreatened by thismigration beganto coalescearound claimsthat suburbs werevacuous andinsipid.
 
Thanks in part toEPA grant mak-ing, smart-growthsupporters arewell organized,while potentialsmart-growthopponents arenot.
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says that smart-growth policies couldactually lead to an increase, not adecrease, in automobile driving. “Thereis no convincing evidence that thesedesigns influence travel behavior at themargin,” says Crane.
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Genevieve Giuliano, planning professorat the University of Southern California,says that attempts to change people’stravel behavior through land-use poli-cies are likely to fail. According to avail-able evidence, she says, “land use poli-cies appear to have little impact on trav-el outcomes.”
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Charles Lave, economist at theUniversity of California-Irvine, notesthat smart-growth-like policies wereinstituted by most European countriesafter World War II. Today, however,those countries are rapidly suburbaniz-ing, and car ownership is increasingthree times as fast as in the UnitedStates. “The desire for personal mobilityseems to be unstoppable,” says Lave.
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It be denied that the debate is hotly polit-ical and of growing importance to state andlocal governments. Thanks in part to EPAgrant making, however, smart-growth sup-porters are well organized, while potentialsmart-growth opponents are not.The first section of this study considersEPA’s legal authority to regulate sprawl andpromote smart growth. The 1970 Clean AirAct as amended over the years and the 1998Transportation Efficiency Act are theagency’s primary justifications for weighingin on the debate regarding urban sprawl.The second section examines the agency’s“Transportation Partners” program, a multi-million-dollar annual grant program to fundanti-automobile activism at the local level.While EPA has promised to reform this con-troversial program, the agency’s pledges failto fully address the fundamental objectionsto the program.The third section examines the agency’s“Smart Growth Network,” an initiative tofund activism to promote what is popularlyreferred to as “new urbanism.” Like theTransportation Partners program, however,the Smart Growth Network is little morethan a front for agency attempts to promoteits agenda on autonomous state and localgovernments.The fourth section considers how thosetwo programs distort democratic decision-making at the local level, while the fifth sec-tion examines how EPA is inappropriatelyusing the 1998 Transportation Efficiency Actto kill state highway expansion and divertconstruction funds to mass transit alterna-tives whether effective or not. The final sec-tion considers how Congress might go aboutremedying the problem of EPA activismwhere it doesn’t belong.
EPA’s Legal Authorityover Sprawl
EPA traces its authority over urban plan-ning to the Clean Air Act, which requires thatstate and metropolitan transportation plansbe designed to bring polluted areas into com-pliance with federal air pollution standards.EPA has oversight over those plans and canimpose sanctions on urban areas that it clas-sifies as polluted and that have failed toimplement plans to clean up that pollution.In 1991 Congress specifically tied federaltransportation dollars—nearly all of whichare generated by gasoline taxes and otherhighway user fees—to clean air. Under thelaw, EPA must deny federal highway funds topolluted cities unless those cities have plansto clean up their air. A recent court casebrought by the Sierra Club against Atlanta,Georgia, affirmed that cities may not spendhighway dollars, even for preapproved pro- jects, unless they have an EPA-approved plan.More than 113 million people live in“nonattainment areas,” that is, cities thatEPA classifies as having air pollution prob-lems. That includes 19 of the nation’s 20largest urban areas (Minneapolis
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St. Paul isthe exception), but it also includes suchsmaller cities as Baton Rouge, Louisiana;
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