Federal Funding
Basics
You Can Open Your Eyes Now: Budget Deal Spares Transpo the Worst
It’s Monday morning, and the government is open for business. In a last-minute agreement just an hour before the current budget extension was to expire Friday night, Democrats and Republicans avoided the nuclear option of a government shutdown.
April 11, 2011
Government Shutdown Would Be a Punch in the Gut to Transit Agencies
A powwow between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, President Obama, and House Speaker John Boehner last night failed to yield a compromise that would put a budget in place before the government shuts down at midnight tonight. The failure of yet another attempt to negotiate makes a government shutdown all but inevitable.
April 8, 2011
Boxer Tests Out “America Fast Forward” at Senate Committee Hearing
With House GOP leadership making it abundantly clear that they would be pleased to return federal transportation policy to the 1950s, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works met today to get serious about the who, what and how of funding a 21st century transportation system.
April 6, 2011
GOP Budget Would Slash Transpo Spending, Entrench Oil Dependence
With the release of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's budget proposal yesterday, right wing calls for massive cuts to transportation spending are now enshrined in the GOP leadership's fiscal plan. Ryan singled out transportation as an area particularly ripe for cuts, criticized the use of gas tax revenues for projects that aren't highways, and called for transportation spending levels to barely cover half of what President Obama requested in February.
April 6, 2011
House Members Make Their Case for Transpo Investment (and Earmarks)
While House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan grabbed headlines with the release of a fiscal plan that would severely constrain the federal transportation program (more on that later), the theme of the day at the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was the desperate need to invest in infrastructure, as members of Congress provided their own proposals to the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.
April 5, 2011
A Call to Plan Cities for Tomorrow, While Bracing for Transit Cuts Today
USDOT Deputy Secretary John Porcari kicked off the Transportation Equity Network’s “One Nation, Indivisible” conference yesterday with a call to think long-term. By 2050, he said, we can expect the U.S. population to grow by 100 million people, and nearly all of them will live in large urban centers. Problems like crumbling infrastructure, inadequate transit systems, grinding traffic and pollution will be much worse then if we don’t start acting today.
April 5, 2011
In the Budget Debate, Scarcely a Mention of the Word “Transportation”
So Congress hasn't resolved the 2011 budget impasse yet, and already there are bigger budget battles about to consume Capitol Hill.
April 4, 2011
Houston Planners Will Spend All Their Federal Air Quality Funding on Cars
It looks like the Houston region still has a long way to go in balancing the needs of cyclists and pedestrians with those of drivers. The region's Transportation Policy Council came down largely on the side of auto infrastructure Friday in deciding how to allocate tens of millions of dollars in federal funding. On the bright side, an all-out push from local cycling and pedestrian advocates successfully preserved a chunk of funding for biking and walking that had been under threat.
March 31, 2011
Strange Bedfellows Unite for Infrastructure Investment, Financing Tools
The “Tom and Rich Show” continued on Capitol Hill yesterday. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue and AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka joined up for yet another event to show that business and labor, which don’t agree on anything, agree on a major infusion of federal investment for infrastructure.
March 31, 2011
House Transportation Committee Rejects Obama’s 2012 Budget Request
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is having its say about the president’s ambitious – and unpaid-for – budget request for transportation.
March 22, 2011