March 15, 2019 – The White House now says that $200 billion in infrastructure funding in the budget won’t go towards surface transportation reauthorization, but that the surface bill will be counted towards the $1 trillion spending total.
March 14, 2019 – Today, a bipartisan group of Senators, including the chairman and ranking minority member of the committee with jurisdiction over mass transit issues, introduced a bill that would ban U.S. transit agencies from buying rail cars or buses made by any company that is “owned or controlled by, is a subsidiary of, or is otherwise related legally or financially to a corporation” located in the People’s Republic of China.
March 11, 2019 – President Trump has released a fiscal year 2020 budget request today that calls for $84.1 billion in gross budgetary resources for the U.S. Department of Transportation today, a $3.5 billion decrease from 2019.
March 8, 2019 – This week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told an Association for Better New York breakfast meeting that he wants to attach legislation forcing the federal government to start funding a $13.6 billion project to build new passenger rail tunnels under the Hudson River to the next “must-pass” spending bill. But it’s hard to see Schumer getting what he wants without either violating Congress’s ban on earmarks, or else fundamentally restructuring the mass transit Capital Investment Grant program.
March 8, 2019 – The House Ways and Means Committee held a long-awaited hearing on infrastructure (and the funding thereof) this week, but little new ground was broken.
March 7, 2019 – This week, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee chairman Grace Napolitano (D-CA) introduced legislation reauthorizing various federal grant programs under the Clean Water Act at levels that will more than double recent funding amounts.
March 8, 2019 – In the country’s two biggest metropolitan areas, political leaders took big steps toward full-scale congestion pricing strategies last week.
March 8, 2019 – On March 4, the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) issued a formal response to the Federal Railroad Administration’s February 19 notice that it intended to cancel the $929 million grant of fiscal year 2010 appropriations promised by the Obama Administration for the Golden State’s troubled high-speed rail project.
Tuesday, March 12 – House Transportation and Infrastructure – Subcommittee on Aviation – subcommittee hearing entitled “Looking Forward: Aviation 2050” (witness list here) – 10:00 a.m., HVC-210 The Capitol.
March 1, 2019 – A House hearing on infrastructure and climate change this week explored the need for federal funding of resilient infrastructure as well as finding the right blend of market-based incentives.
March 1, 2019 – The decision of whether or not to revive the earmarking process has to be made by party leaders, who have been slow to address the issue this year. And with the Appropriations Committee preparing to start drafting fiscal 2020 appropriations bills in April, and with T&I possibly acting on some kind of infrastructure legislation in the coming months, there are only a few weeks left for leaders to make the decisions on earmarks before they risk losing the opportunity to earmark those bills.
March 1, 2019 – On February 26, the House Homeland Security Committee held a joint hearing to look at ways to secure the U.S. surface transportation system from cyber attacks, including potential threats posted by Chinese manufacture of rail cars.
March 1, 2019 – This week, a group of Senate Republicans from the South led by Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) and abetted by Sen.
March 1, 2019 – Yesterday, the chairman and ranking Democrat of the Senate Finance Committee, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), jointly introduced legislation that would provide temporary extensions of numerous targeted tax breaks that expired at the end of 2017 or 2018.
March 1, 2019 – This week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its estimates of what the Budget Control Act spending caps on discretionary appropriations will be in the upcoming fiscal year (2020) and the final year under which the caps currently apply, 2021.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019 – House Transportation and Infrastructure – Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation – subcommittee hearing on the U.S. maritime and shipbuilding industries (witness list here) – 10:00 a.m., 2253 Rayburn.
February 25, 2019 – 100 years ago today, the first tax on gasoline as a motor fuel in U.S. history was enacted by the state of Oregon, as a way to pay for an ambitious road construction and maintenance program.
February 22, 2019 – Eno and the Reason Foundation recently gathered 24 leading academics, current and former agency heads, and other experts for a two-day workshop on institutional reform. The goal was to understand the current governance challenges and ways in which the transportation industry may consider ways to rethink it.
February 22, 2019 – Ride-sharing services offer an opportunity to enhance transit and create a new ecosystem of interconnected multimodal options where ride-hailing and transit work together to provide cost-efficient and environmentally friendlier commutes.
February 22, 2019 – As we prepare to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the enactment of the first motor fuels tax by Oregon in February 1919, here is a look at unsuccessful attempts to tax gasoline in Congress from 1914 through 1918.