U.S. Senate
Basics
Senate Climate Bill Triples the House’s Investments in Clean Transport
The Senate environment committee released new details of its climate change legislation over the weekend, including the share of "emissions allowances" -- the revenue generated by regulating carbon in a cap-and-trade system -- that the bill would reserve for various sectors of the American economy.
October 26, 2009
Senate Signals 6-Month Delay for Transport Bill — But Will the House Agree?
The Senate is leaning towards abandoning the Obama administration's push for an 18-month delay of the next long-term transportation bill and now plans to pursue a six-month extension of existing federal infrastructure law, according to a report from CQ this afternoon:
October 23, 2009
Senior Dem Senator to Offer Competing Plan to Limit Distracted Driving
Few if any policy-makers are prepared to defend the dangerous practice of using cell phones and texting behind the wheel. But even as reining in distracted driving gets a higher profile, there is some difference of opinion over whether to use carrots or sticks.
October 15, 2009
Senate Climate Bill Delayed Yet Again As Obama Takes Nobel
As my colleague Ryan wrote earlier, the congressional climate change bill no represents the most meaningful path for urbanists, and advocates for clean transportation in general, to make their voices heard in the national debate.
October 9, 2009
Two More Senate Dems Back Plan to Devote Climate Money to Transit
This week has brought news of a brewing compromise on the Senate climate change bill, introduced last month amid signals that the upper chamber would give only a bit more to clean transportation than the House's meager 1 percent set-aside of revenue from cap-and-trade carbon regulations.
October 8, 2009
Is a Bigger Transportation Bill — This Year — Back on the Table?
That's the suggestion that an anonymous "Senate aide" made to Bloomberg News this morning, recounting a possible White House change of heart as mounting job losses stoke new debate over a second stimulus bill:
October 6, 2009
GOP Blocks Plan to Use Bailout Fund to Preserve $8.7B in Transport Money
A bipartisan bid to extend existing federal transportation law for three months -- and tap the TARP bailout fund to avert the cancellation of $8.7 billion in contract authority -- was rejected on the Senate floor last night after GOP senators insisted on using stimulus money, rather than bailout cash, to fix the problem.
October 1, 2009
Senate Passes One-Month Extension of Transport Law … For Now
By a vote of 62-38, the Senate has just passed a one-month extension of the 2005 transportation law, which was set to expire at midnight tonight and leave state DOTs without a steady source of funding for road, bridge, and transit projects.
September 30, 2009
Senate Climate Bill Released With Much Fanfare, Little Focus on Transport
Flanked by fellow Democrats, members of the military, and a crowd hoisting signs with buzzwords like "clean energy" and "green jobs," Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA) today released the first draft of their legislation to curb U.S. emissions and combat climate change.
September 30, 2009
Senate Climate Bill Leaks: The Good News and Bad News for Transport
The Senate's climate change legislation will finally make its debut tomorrow, courtesy of environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and foreign relations committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA). But the Washington Post has already obtained a "close-to-final" version of the bill [PDF], which provides some details but leaves unanswered the key question of how much aid will go towards clean transport.
September 29, 2009