Tale of two authorities

Considering the Delaware River Port Authority's well-documented failings, reform legislation proposed by a bipartisan, bistate group of officials last year might seem mild to most observers. But it's too strong for Steve Sweeney.

The New Jersey Senate president quickly declared the bill unnecessary, and as The Inquirer's Andrew Seidman reported this week, it has gone nowhere ever since.

As much as Gov. Christie's recent veto of legislation to reform another bistate transportation agency, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Sweeney's inaction represents a resounding vote for the status quo. Like its bridge-blocking big brother up north, the DRPA is a governmental backwater vulnerable to corruption, waste, and incompetence. And New Jersey's powers that be apparently would like to keep it that way.

In April, Republican lawmakers from both sides of the Delaware joined Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, a Democrat with a seat on the DRPA board, in proposing the reforms. Most importantly, they would revoke the agency's broad leeway to fund "economic development" projects far afield of its bridges and rail line. Agency officials claim to have kicked that habit, though not before provoking a federal investigation by frittering away half a billion dollars for museums, stadiums, hospitals, and other questionable purposes.

The legislation would also take such less-than-revolutionary steps as requiring the DRPA to undergo biennial audits, obey open-records laws, disclose contractors' political contributions, and refrain from paying employees more than $175,000 a year.

But even as Sweeney (D., Gloucester) has called for reforming the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - helping ensure that legislation reached Christie's desk and even expressing support for an attempt to override his veto - he has maintained that the DRPA needs no such attention. While he has parleyed with the northern agency's chairman and weighed in on a proposed reduction of its PATH train service, he has seemed relatively disengaged from the authority issues in his own South Jersey backyard.

That may be because the other authority is famously linked to a traffic jam orchestrated by Christie's aides, providing endless fodder for political point-scoring by Sweeney's fellow Democrats. The DRPA, meanwhile, is controlled partly by Sweeney's brother Richard, who sits on its board, and other South Jersey Democratic stalwarts.

Of course, it's preposterous to suggest that either port authority is shipshape. The most accurate criticism of the DRPA legislation is that it doesn't go far enough. While the agency has taken a turn toward its core functions and away from its worst practices, that shouldn't prevent legislators from making the progress official and permanent.