Today’s Headlines

By Elana Schor
Nov 11, 2009

Harvard economist Ed Glaeser takes a look at the sprawl-inducing home buyer’s tax credit, a policy only "a real estate agent could love" (NYT Blog)

Confirmation of what you heard here last month: The No. 2 Senate Democrat thinks a gas tax needs to be on the table to fund a transportation bill next year (Dow Jones)

An in-depth look at the serious challenges facing American high-speed rail (Wilson Quarterly)

Aw, Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and senior Republican Jim Inhofe (OK) are really close friends … (Politico)

… even though Inhofe is still taunting Democrats over his party’s climate change boycott (Media Matters)

Federal transit regulators give final approval to new transit lines in Denver (Denver Biz Jrnl)

Seattle NIMBYs take aim at high-speed rail plan (News-Trib)

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Stark Divisions Between Dems and GOP on Climate Impacts of Transportation

By Angie Schmitt | Aug 22, 2016

How polarized are the two political parties on key questions about transportation policy and climate change? As you can imagine, the answer is “very.” The senior Democrat and Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee — California’s Barbara Boxer and Oklahoma’s Jim Inhofe, respectively — each wrote an opinion this week for the Eno Center for […]

GOP Will Control the Senate in 2015. What Does It Mean for Transportation?

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 5, 2014

The forecasting models were right: As the polls closed last night it quickly became apparent that Republicans will gain control of the Senate, occupying at least 52 seats. The implications for transportation are immense. To understand what they are, first let’s look at what last night means for the prospects for a new transportation bill next […]

Inhofe Questions Transit and Bike-Ped Investments in House Transport Bill

By Elana Schor | Mar 18, 2010

The senior Republican on the Senate environment panel today criticized the House’s six-year transportation bill, lamenting that the measure "focus[es] very heavily on transit, bike paths, and sidewalks" and carves out a strong federal role in "decisions historically left to the state level." Inhofe’s concerns, raised at the latest in the environment committee’s series of […]

Senate Dems Put Out Their Own Trillion Dollar Infrastructure Plan

By Angie Schmitt | Jan 24, 2017

Senate Democrats have an infrastructure "blueprint" of their own, one that's weighted toward transit. The trouble is that Democrats have little power to set terms, and getting drawn into negotiations over an unnecessary infrastructure bill may not play out to their advantage.

Senate Committee Backs Infrastructure Spending (But Not For Bike Lanes)

By Tanya Snyder | Jan 26, 2011

“We need to take care of this sooner than later,” Sen. Barbara Boxer said this morning in reference to a surface transportation reauthorization. “We can’t keep doing extension after extension.” Before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee even has all its members named (that should happen in the next day or so, according to […]

It Gets Worse: Boxer/Inhofe to Request $50B More for Highways

By Matthew Roth | Feb 3, 2009

Barbara Boxer and infamous global warming denier James Inhofe will present an amendment to the Senate stimulus plan that could funnel as much as $50 billion in additional funding to highways, Streetsblog has learned. Friends of the Earth tells us that Boxer’s staff confirmed she will introduce the amendment, which could bring the total for […]