Ben Goldman

The last piece of the Senate's two-year transportation reauthorization proposal will be marked up by the Finance Committee tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. The committee was tasked with finding approximately $12 billion to bridge the projected shortfall of the Highway Trust Fund over the life of the bill. So far, according to a summary released by Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), they have found a little over $10.4 billion:

Today at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, four members of New York's congressional delegation joined the head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in decrying House GOP efforts to drastically alter how the federal government supports transit in cities.

The House has finished marking up its transportation bill in what shaped up to be a very Groundhog Day-esque ordeal of unending, repetitive partisan theater (if you missed it, follow coverage on twitter).

The House Ways and Means committee has just passed a bill that would kick transit out of the highway trust fund, casting aside a 30-year history of providing a dedicated funding source for federal transit programs. Transit instead would be funded by a transfer from the general fund, which would have to be offset by cuts elsewhere to avoid raising the deficit. As US PIRG's Dan Smith said yesterday, this is like saying that transit funding will come from the Tooth Fairy.

House Transportation Bill Clears Committee, 29-24, in Marathon 18-Hour Markup (Politico) Early Morning Amendment Bars CA HSR From Bill’s Federal Funds (Hill) Another Amendment Postpones Decision on Lifting Limits on Trucks (Bloomberg) Congress Struggles for Solution to Fix Crumbling Infrastructure (WaPo) Infrastructure Problems Go Beyond the Dollars (HuffPo) State DOT Association Chief: Feds’ Wrangling Is … Continued

While their colleagues in the House were debating more than 80 amendments to a transportation bill, members of the Senate Banking Committee were quietly passing their two-year transit bill with -- get this -- unanimous bipartisan support. The bill includes some reforms -- such as allowing federal funds to be spent on transit operations -- that transit advocates have been pushing for.

In a move that should dispel any remaining thoughts that the House transportation bill [PDF] will ever be signed into law, the Ways and Means Committee announced today that they will try to forbid gas tax revenue from funding transit.

An amendment that would restore the popular Safe Routes to School and Transportation Enhancements programs to the House GOP's transportation bill has just been defeated in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee by a vote of 29-27. Supporters of safer biking and walking sent thousands of messages to Congress supporting this amendment in the short time that advocates had to mobilize. In the end, however, the three Republicans who joined the Democrats in favor of the amendment were not enough to deliver a majority. Rep. Tom Petri of Wisconsin, the amendment’s sponsor, Rep. Tim Johnson of Illinois (a co-sponsor), and Rep. Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey were the three “yea” votes on the GOP side.

Happy Groundhog Day!

In a seven-hour markup session today, the House Natural Resources Committee approved three bills that would expand oil and natural gas exploration in Alaska and the outer continental shelf, all without bipartisan support.