Federal Funding
Basics
Sen. Boxer Calls For Solution to Highway Trust Fund Insolvency
Senator Barbara Boxer brought together transportation industry representatives this morning to highlight the damage that would be done to the economy if Congress doesn’t come up with a solution to the impending insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund. New CBO estimates, released this week [PDF], project that the fund will be zeroed out by the time MAP-21 expires at the end of Fiscal Year 2014. Boxer says she doesn't intend to wait until the last minute to act.
July 25, 2013
A Few Wacky Ideas Persist as Congress Moves to Accept Funding Realities
There are five stages of mourning, and Congress is moving through them as they begin to face the inevitability of increased revenues for transportation. Lawmakers been through denial, anger, and bargaining, and now they’re pretty solidly in the depression phase. That leaves just one more: acceptance.
July 23, 2013
Study: Federal Funding Means More Bike Commuting
Bicycling is at a tipping point in many American cities. Bike-share systems are multiplying rapidly, infrastructure that used to be seen as novel is now commonplace, and commuting rates are growing. There are many explanations for this cultural shift, but here’s one not to be ignored: federal funding.
July 12, 2013
Amtrak Foe Mica Meets His Match in John Robert Smith
I just sat through a pretty boring hearing on rail financing. But I’m glad I stuck it out, because the fireworks came at the end, when Rep. John Mica picked a fight with the wrong man.
July 9, 2013
Senate Offers a More Multi-Modal 2014 Transportation Budget Than the House
Last week, a House panel envisioned some big cuts to next year’s transportation budget. TIGER and high-speed rail would get nothing, Amtrak would get slashed, and ixnay on all that green “livability” crap. (And that's practically a quote.)
June 27, 2013
“The Twilight of the Appropriations Process”: House GOP Gets Its Knives Out
Constrained by Paul Ryan's budget and the sequester, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and HUD passed a $44 billion spending bill for 2014 – 15 percent lower than 2013 enacted levels. The bill contains $15.3 billion in discretionary appropriations for the Department of Transportation, also 15 percent below enacted 2013 levels and amounting to about two-thirds of the president’s request. It passed the subcommitee this morning on a voice vote.
June 19, 2013
Obama’s Budget Would Save the Transpo Trust Fund. If Only It Were Real.
President Obama’s transportation budget proposal can give you a contact high if you stand too close. The prospect of budget surpluses -- in the near-term, at least -- is intoxicating. And the source of those surpluses -- from Overseas Contingency Operations -- is a hallucination.
May 20, 2013
U.S. PIRG: The Driving Boom Is Over But the Road-Building Binge Continues
The driving boom is over.
May 14, 2013
A Golden Opportunity for Congress to Avoid the Transportation “Fiscal Cliff”
MAP-21 expires in a year and five months. When it does, if lawmakers haven’t already found a solution to the “transportation fiscal cliff,” they’ll have to do one of three things, according to a report issued last week by the Congressional Budget Office [PDF]:
May 1, 2013
Sparks Fly as Lawmaker Grills LaHood on Columbia River Crossing Transit
From the beginning of today’s hearing, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee made it clear they weren’t going to let Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s last appearance before them be an easy one. While the hearing's purpose was to examine the department's budget request, the tough questions LaHood fielded on the budget were nothing compared to the fight one lawmaker picked about the Columbia River Crossing.
April 16, 2013