Transportation Policy

The Senate approved its version of the stimulus bill this afternoon by a 61-37 vote. Attention now turns to conference committee negotiations, where differences between the House and Senate bills will get ironed out. Politico has the scoop on who will be negotiating on the Senate side, and they're not exactly an urban bunch:

While we've been focusing on the stimulus action in Washington this week, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign has kept an eye on the region's state DOTs, which will dispense billions for transportation infrastructure. On Wednesday Tri-State filed suit to prevent the New Jersey Turnpike Authority from widening the Garden State Parkway, a project the agency intends to fund in part with stimulus cash. Tri-State has also kept the pressure on Connecticut's DOT -- which never made its wish list public -- to invest in transit, bike, and pedestrian improvements.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco claims she is committed to public transit and reducing motor vehicle congestion. In a speech to the Regional Plan Association (RPA) last April she said her flagship issues as speaker are energy independence and reducing global warming.

Last night Jerrold Nadler's stimulus bill amendment, which would add $3 billion for transit, cleared the House Rules Committee. The full House may vote on the amendment by noon today, so the sooner you call your representative the better.

Last night's news about the denial of Rep. DeFazio's amendment to fund transit operations left us wondering whether parliamentary issues were really the deciding factor. In general, it appears, the Democratic leadership is coming down hard against any add-ons to the recovery package. "There's a desire to keep the bill at the size it is currently," said one House staffer involved in the negotiations who wished to remain anonymous. "Pelosi's office and the Appropriations Committee are resistant to amendments that increase the size of the bill."

This news came in late in the day from Transportation from America:

Looks like Ray LaHood will sail toward an easy confirmation in the Senate. Members of the Transportation Committee were congratulating him before he opened his mouth at this afternoon's nomination hearing, which just adjourned. Here are some bullet points:

Reporting on last week's stimulus letdown -- when a proposal by US Rep. James Oberstar's Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for $17 billion in mass transit spending was slashed by the Appropriations Committee, while $30 billion in proposed allocations for roads and bridges remained the same -- Grist got word that the then-incoming Obama administration may have had a hand in paring down the transportation package.  

For everyone hoping that an $825 billion stimulus package might advance a visionary national agenda for sustainable transportation, yesterday's release of a draft economic recovery bill didn't deliver the goods. Nor did it include some pretty easy lifts, like the $1.7 billion for transit operations that the House approved in an earlier bill last summer.