House Celebrates Norman Mineta, Ignores His Ideas

By Tanya Snyder

2:37 PM EST on December 17, 2010

Sponsored

Congratulations are in order for former DOT chief Norman Mineta. The House of Representatives just voted, 384 to 0, to honor his accomplishments.

Unfortunately, they still can’t muster the votes to follow his urgent recommendations: that the country ramp up our investments in infrastructure, that we switch from a gas tax to a VMT fee, that we think of projects in terms of long-term economic benefit and not just short-term job creation.

We’re impressed, too, by Mineta’s history, from an incarcerated Japanese-American during World War Two to serving as the first Asian-American Cabinet secretary for a U.S. president (first as Commerce Secretary under Clinton, then Transportation Secretary under George W. Bush.) And now he’s an advocate for big changes he says are necessary to keep this country competitive. Where’s the unanimous House vote to support that?

Tanya Snyder

Tanya became Streetsblog's Capitol Hill editor in September 2010 after covering Congress for Pacifica Radios Washington bureau and for public radio stations around the country. She lives car-free in a transit-oriented and bike-friendly neighborhood of Washington, DC.

House of Representatives | Norman Mineta

Support Streetsblog

Streetsblog has migrated to a new comment system. New commenters can register directly in the comments section of any article. Returning commenters: your previous comments and display name have been preserved, but you'll need to reclaim your account by clicking "Forgot your password?" on the sign-in form, entering your email, and following the verification link to set a new password — this is required because passwords could not be carried over during the migration. For questions, contact tips@streetsblog.org.