bicycle commuter reimbursement

Among my daily blog rounds, quite a few have made reference of a provision of the bailout bill that apparently extends a tax benefit to employers who reimburse employees for bicycle commuting expenses, up to $20 per employee per month.

Why was this included? I didn't realize that there was any key constituency clamoring for this type of benefit.

I have two or three ideas. One is that Congress believes the economy is taking a huge shit, and bike commuters will be an increasingly influential bloc of votes as driving becomes less and less feasible. Also, employers will benefit by having a carrot to encourage workers to continue to commute when they can't get an auto loan or fill the tank. The second idea is admittedly more of a black helicopter theory. Bike commuters are a generally independent group who have some degree of anonymity and invisibility (aside from the fact that we all have blogs). We saw that bicyclists fell under some scrutiny leading up to and during the RNC convention, for example. This relatively minor tax benefit is a good way of compiling a list of potential malcontents and troublemakers.