Update on Stimulus Action in the Senate — Keep Up the Pressure

The latest word from DC is that Kit Bond’s pro-highway/anti-rail amendments have yet to come to the floor, while the Inhofe/Boxer amendment to create a $50 billion highway slush fund is still being finalized by its authors. The phone calls and emails are having an effect — Boxer felt enough pressure to adjust her amendment, Transportation for America tells us, but the tweaks don’t go far enough. (This huge pool of money would not, for example, set aside any amount explicitly for transit.)

Advocates have to keep up the pressure on each count. Bond’s amendments are still very much a threat, and the Boxer/Inhofe amendment, while malleable, is a disaster waiting to happen in its current incarnation. The latest action item from T4A takes aim at both.

I hope you noticed that our Streetsblog Network Action Widget — it’s there on the right sidebar — is sporting a new call to arms for this latest fight in the Senate. If you’d like to add a dynamic action alert to your own blog or website, here are the instructions.

  • Danny G

    Just called the Boxer office, they told me the Inhofe/Boxer bill was defeated yesterday.

  • Denizen

    The Senate is vastly overrepresented by thinly-populated, rural states which have little to gain from transit projects. It’s a vast travesty of democracy that the House of Representatives needs approval from the undemocratic Senate to do much of anything.

  • James

    People, this fight looks to be harder than we even thought possible. Getting Obama into office was just the first engagement in the larger battle to get something approaching equity in transportation policy in this country. The real battle has now begun with the stimulus package debate in Congress. We truly see what we are up against now. Today, the Senate just voted an $11 billion tax break for new car purchases, yet we can’t even get two pennies to rub together for transit. It’s hard to not feel the familiar cynicism of the last 8 years creep back in, I feel it too, but don’t give up just yet.

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