Bicycle Commuter Act and Conserve By Bicycling Reintroduced in
Congress (Posted 2.25.05)
The bicycling agenda is alive and well in the halls of Congress with
less than three weeks to go before the National Bike Summit® (March
16-18 in Washington, DC). In addition to transportation
reauthorization, bicycling commuter and conserve by bike legislation
are once again being considered in the 109th Congress.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Mark Foley (R-FL) have
reintroduced the Bicycle Commuter Act (H.R. 807). It is anticipated
that Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) will
reintroduce the Senate companion measure prior to the Summit. The
Bicycle Commuter Act would allow an employer to add bicycling to the
definition of transportation fringe benefit in the tax code. The
transportation fringe benefit was added as an incentive to get more
people to use alternative modes of transportation for commuting. The
goal is to reduce traffic congestion, pollution and wear and tear on
the roads. Under H.R. 807, employers could offer monthly cash
reimbursement of up to $100 to an employee who commutes to work by
bicycle, providing a tax benefit to the employer and helping defray
commuting expenses for the bicyclist.

In addition, Congressman James Oberstar (D-MN) has introduced H.R.
722, the Securing Transportation Energy Efficiency for Tomorrow Act
of 2005. This bill also includes language very similar to H.R. 807,
but with a $75 a month cap. Furthermore, H.R. 722 includes conserve
by bicycling language, comparable to the language in last year's
energy bill. This language would provide $10 million to establish a
pilot program with up to 10 geographically dispersed projects to use
education and marketing and provide facilities to convert motor
vehicle trips to bike trips as an energy savings measure. For more
information, visit http://www.bikeleague.org or http://thomas.loc.gov.