House of Representatives
Taxpayer Group: GOP Drill Bill “Not a Responsible Budget Approach”
From an environmental perspective, the House GOP proposal to fund infrastructure with fees on fossil fuel extraction is clearly a disaster. But does it even pass the smell test from a dollars-and-cents perspective?
November 21, 2011
Boehner Touts Vague Outline of Oil Drilling + Transpo Bill
Domestic oil drilling would increase exponentially under a proposal that the House GOP is developing as part of its legislative package for long-term transportation policy. John Boehner outlined the basics of the package today.
November 17, 2011
No Details Yet on House Transportation and Oil Drilling Bill
House leaders did not unveil a bill at their press conference this morning.
November 17, 2011
House GOP Takes the Plunge, Unveils Transportation and Energy Plan Today
UPDATE 12:00: Leaders did not introduce a bill, but outlined their plan in rather vague terms. More to come.
November 17, 2011
2012 Transpo Budget: Sustainable Communities and HSR Out, TIGER In
Remember those radically different appropriations bills passed by the House and the Senate? And how I said they’d never come together, and they probably would never pass a 2012 budget anyway because all Congress ever does anymore is extend previous budgets because they can’t agree on anything?
November 16, 2011
Mica Warns Boxer on Highway Trust Fund; House Plans Hearing on “Drill Bill”
“I want to congratulate you on your Committee’s approval of the ‘Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act,” begins House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica’s letter yesterday to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
November 15, 2011
Mica Drops Amtrak Privatization Plan In Call for Northeast Corridor HSR
House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica backed off his controversial plan to privatize passenger rail on the Northeast Corridor today, announcing at a press conference that reforming Amtrak would suffice.
November 8, 2011
Coming Soon: Super-Partisan “Oil-For-Infrastructure” Transpo Bill
“In the coming weeks, House Republicans will formally introduce an energy & infrastructure jobs bill, and hope to move the legislation through the House before the end of the year,” House Speaker John Boehner announced yesterday.
November 4, 2011
How Will the House Answer the Senate’s Transportation Funding Bill?
The full Senate passed a major appropriations bill yesterday, including funding levels for transportation and housing. The Senate put the kibosh on Sen. Rand Paul's attempt to strip bike/ped funding from the federal transportation program, as we reported yesterday. Here's the lowdown on the bill as a whole.
November 2, 2011
Why Create an Infrastructure Bank When We Could Just Expand TIFIA?
There’s been a lot of adulation heaped upon the TIFIA loan program lately. Both houses of Congress are ready to increase funding for the program nine times over, from $100 million to $1 billion a year – despite warnings from outside groups that there may not be enough eligible projects to use up all that money.
October 28, 2011