U.S. Senate

Last week, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) told Streetsblog freelancer Alice Ollstein that he had good reason to oppose Transportation Enhancements, the program that funds bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

The Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously agreed this morning to send a four-month extension of the transportation bill to the full Senate. Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) emphasized that it wasn’t easy to get consensus on the extension, especially with many members wanting to move forward with the full two-year bill.

Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn is known around the Senate as "Dr. No" for his propensity to hold up key legislation, single-handedly, because it contains something not to his liking (or sometimes because he's upset about something else entirely.) On Veterans Day in 2009, he shocked even his GOP colleagues by blocking veterans' benefits because he wanted their cost to be offset. Because of a Senate rule requiring unanimity for certain votes, he alone has been able to block votes on wilderness protections, health care provisions, and disarmament in Uganda.

Since the 112th Congress convened in January, the federal government almost shut down, the government almost defaulted on its debts, and the FAA was temporarily shuttered. It’s the Crisis Congress, thriving on the chaos of catastrophe. Next up: a bruising fight over funding the transportation system.

Update 8/4: Exactly how "found" this money is seems to depend on who you ask. A Finance Committee staffer informed us yesterday that they were "working on offset options and determining which can get the support needed to move forward" -- a far cry from the certainty expressed by two sources below. The issue may simply be that while committee leadership has identified a source for the funds, it hasn't gotten full agreement yet. 

Both houses of Congress have now put their stamp of approval on the bill to raise the debt ceiling, just hours before a deadline that would have lowered the U.S. credit rating, forced the country to default on its debts, and potentially triggered a worldwide recession.

The House and Senate are getting close to voting on a deal, reached over the weekend, to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending.

At today’s hearing, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee celebrated the bipartisan consensus it has reached on a new transportation reauthorization – but details of that consensus are still not public. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) did confirm that dedicated federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian programs remains in the bill. Addressing LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa:

At a Commerce Committee hearing today, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) spoke out in favor of their infrastructure bank proposal, while Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and John Rockefeller (D-WV) championed their own legislation. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who is a member of the Commerce Committee as well as chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, also spoke strongly in favor of an infrastructure bank, although the transportation reauthorization outline she released yesterday didn’t say anything specifically about such a bank.