House of Representatives
Basics
Mica Drops Amtrak Privatization Plan In Call for Northeast Corridor HSR
House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica backed off his controversial plan to privatize passenger rail on the Northeast Corridor today, announcing at a press conference that reforming Amtrak would suffice.
November 8, 2011
Coming Soon: Super-Partisan “Oil-For-Infrastructure” Transpo Bill
“In the coming weeks, House Republicans will formally introduce an energy & infrastructure jobs bill, and hope to move the legislation through the House before the end of the year,” House Speaker John Boehner announced yesterday.
November 4, 2011
How Will the House Answer the Senate’s Transportation Funding Bill?
The full Senate passed a major appropriations bill yesterday, including funding levels for transportation and housing. The Senate put the kibosh on Sen. Rand Paul's attempt to strip bike/ped funding from the federal transportation program, as we reported yesterday. Here's the lowdown on the bill as a whole.
November 2, 2011
Why Create an Infrastructure Bank When We Could Just Expand TIFIA?
There’s been a lot of adulation heaped upon the TIFIA loan program lately. Both houses of Congress are ready to increase funding for the program nine times over, from $100 million to $1 billion a year – despite warnings from outside groups that there may not be enough eligible projects to use up all that money.
October 28, 2011
Mica Won’t Say Where Transpo Funding Will Come From; LaHood Defends TE
House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) said this morning that getting permission from Republican leadership to find more revenues to fund the transportation bill was a “major breakthrough” but still won’t say where the money will come from.
October 14, 2011
Carnahan and LaTourette Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Bolster Transit Service
It's a sign of the recession, but also symptomatic of a longstanding restriction on federal transit funding. In Lorain, Ohio and Albany, New York and other cities across the country, rows of brand new buses, paid for with stimulus money, have been laid up in garages.
October 13, 2011
Update: House Gives Free Pass to Cement Polluters
Just to give a quick update on the Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act that we reported on yesterday: The House passed the bill 262 to 161 in a not-quite-party-line vote. None of Rep. Henry Waxman's amendments were accepted. In fact, no amendments were accepted. All were offered by Democrats.
October 6, 2011
House to Vote on Cement Industry Environmental Regulations
Republicans have made clear that they don't think President Obama's jobs plan, including $50 billion for transportation infrastructure, will create jobs. They would rather remove regulations that cost industry money. They say reducing this "regulatory burden" will create jobs -- and they want to start with the cement industry.
October 5, 2011
USDOT Tries to Resuscitate the HSR Dreams Congress Wants to Bury
High-speed rail has had a rough go of it lately. The House refused to give it a dime for next year, while the Senate only managed to allocate a fraction of what the president wanted. President Obama stuck some money back in via his jobs package, but it already seems clear that the package won’t pass as proposed, and we know high-speed rail is the always first for the chopping block.
October 4, 2011
Cantor Orders Up Tax Cuts, Hold the Jobs
Congressional insiders say that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is refusing to hold an "all or nothing" vote on President Obama's jobs bill. Cantor says he'll bring "elements" of the bill to the floor but not the whole bill.
October 3, 2011