Tanya Snyder

This is the second of two posts examining Rep. Bill Shuster’s candidacy for the chairmanship of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Yesterday, we took a look at Shuster's positions on rail and his leadership style. Here we delve into his record on active transportation and the always-thorny topic of funding.

This is the first of two posts examining Rep. Bill Shuster's candidacy for the chairmanship of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. We'll post the second one, focused on his positions on bike/ped programs and funding issues, tomorrow.

Some readers took issue with yesterday's post that characterized a carbon tax as a terrific but politically unlikely proposal, after the Obama administration shot down the idea last week. Putting a price on carbon emissions is, after all, generating renewed interest from across the ideological spectrum. Notably, the libertarian American Enterprise Institute is co-sponsoring a forum on the issue today with the left-leaning Brookings Institution, Resources for the Future, and the IMF.

Grover Norquist Gives His Blessing to a Carbon Tax — With Conditions (National Journal) … He’s Not Alone: A Growing Chorus Says Now Is the Time For a Carbon Tax (Bacon’s Rebellion) Inhofe Not Returning to Leadership Role on EPW Committee (Trans. Issues Daily) Can We Talk About a Gas Tax Increase Yet? (National Journal) … Continued

About 12 hours after President Obama won re-election, Bloomberg News ran this tantalizing headline: "Obama May Levy Carbon Tax to Cut U.S. Deficit, HSBC Says."

Just a Reminder To Give the President Some Slack When It Comes to Progress on Infrastructure (WaPo) IBIS World Ranked Each Candidate By Risk Level To Various Transpo Modes [PDF] Assaults Increase Against Transit Operators (KC Star) As Car-Obsessed Baby Boomers Diminish Their Driving, VMT Will Drop (AP) Oregon to Test VMT Charge (Bulletin) If … Continued

In addition to some of the high-profile measures that we covered already, Election Day brought many successes on some smaller ballot initiatives. According to the Center For Transportation Excellence, pro-transit campaigns had an 80 percent success rate this year at the ballot box, with more ballot measures coming up for a vote than any previous year.

UPDATE 1:47 p.m.: Speaker Boehner just sent out an email to reporters, highlighting media reports of his comments that assert that he doesn't intend to raise tax rates. It clarifies his position that the election doesn't equal a "mandate for raising tax rates” on the American people. 

On the local level, the night’s biggest win for sustainable transportation was the victory of Kirk Caldwell over Ben Cayetano to be mayor of Honolulu. Caldwell had won just 29 percent of the vote in the three-way primary race, facing a steep uphill battle in the general election versus Cayetano, a popular former governor who had pulled in 44 percent of the primary vote.

Yesterday's election made history on many different fronts: gay marriage, immigration, consumer protection, and more. But America also voted to maintain essentially the same balance of power in Washington that has brought about so much gridlock. In the transportation arena, that gridlock meant three years of dithering on a national bill and, ultimately, a new law that failed to make many of the reforms needed to help the country build a greener, safer, 21st century transportation system.