Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In

House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) will ask his revenue-minded colleagues on the Ways and Means panel tomorrow to approve $3 billion to keep the nation's highway trust fund afloat until September 30, according to a report in today's CQ.

oberstar.jpgHouse transportation chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) (Photo: Jonathan Maus)

Oberstar's proposed patch for the trust fund falls short of the $5 billion to $7 billion that the White House estimates the nation's road programs will need to avoid insolvency before the beginning of October.

But the small size of Oberstar's trust fund fix has a purpose: to give him more time to win support for his six-year, $450 billion transportation bill, which the Obama administration and the Senate want to delay until 2011. Per CQ:

...Oberstar's move underscores the House-Senate split over a transportation reauthorization. Oberstar and House leaders want to move quickly on a long-term bill that would dramatically boost road, bridge, and transit funding and overhaul how it is delivered. And Oberstar doesn't want to do anything that would relieve the pressure to enact such a measure.

Will the administration and the Senate win a quick victory in their push for an extension of current transport law, or will the impasse shift into September?

Whether Ways and Means members agree to Oberstar's scaled-down trust
fund patch tomorrow will go a long way towards answering that question.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Friday’s Headlines Transform and Roll Out

Will autonomous vehicles really make us safer? Maybe in the long run, but maybe not in the short run.

May 23, 2025

Talking Headways Podcast: When You Don’t Really Need an Ambulance

Let's talk about the realities of non-emergency medical transportation, long a quiet backwater of urban transport planning.

May 22, 2025

Thursday’s Headlines Are Open 24 Hours

Between an egg surcharge and now EV chargers, late-night diner chain Waffle House looks ready to thrown down with the Trump administration.

May 22, 2025

How A Single Transportation Emergency Can Keep Parents From Achieving Their College Dreams

Abigail Seldin of Scholarship America about the 3.8 million U.S. students who are earning degrees while raising families.

May 22, 2025

Republican Senators Press Attack on CA’s Clean Air Laws

Anyone hoping that Congressional Republican leaders would follow generations of precedent regarding the role of the non-partisan Senate Parliamentarian or the Government Accountability Office (GAO) had a very bad day yesterday.

May 21, 2025

What It’s Like to Grow Up Car-Free In Chicago

"There's a good mix of time where you don't want your parents to drop you off, but you have to, because you don't have your own car," Quetzal said. "I never had that."

May 21, 2025
See all posts