Infrastructure

If 80 percent of the American people agree that federal infrastructure investment will create jobs, and two-thirds say better infrastructure is important, why is the call for a robust transportation bill being made in whispers? And why is Congress already two and a half years late in producing one?

The U.S. DOT announced this morning that it’s allocating almost $1.6 billion for repairs to roads and bridges that were damaged in recent floods and storms. If House Republicans had gotten their way, this money would have come out of high-speed rail funds.

Match the quotation to its Speaker (hint, hint!):

Congress has already delayed their holiday recess by a week, and members are hoping another delay won't be necessary. Among the yet-unfinished business: an extension of the payroll tax cut. House Speaker John Boehner plans to hold a vote today on his bill, which marries an extension of the payroll tax cut to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. While expected to sail through the House, such a partisan bill is unlikely to pass the Senate. Enter Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

Two competing versions of a transportation-related job creation bill went down yesterday in the Senate. The first, the Rebuild America Jobs Act (S.1769), was a Democratic proposal, modeled on President Obama's job creation bill, to invest $50 billion for infrastructure and another $10 billion as seed money to create a new national infrastructure bank.

This morning, the Senate is debating two transportation-related bills: the Rebuild America Jobs Act (S.1769) and the Long-Term Surface Transportation Extension Act (S.1786).

White Flint, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC, should be a shining example of transit-oriented development. It’s centered on a metro station on the busy red line, sandwiched between the bustling suburban downtowns of Bethesda and Rockville.

House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica (R-FL) said this morning that getting permission from Republican leadership to find more revenues to fund the transportation bill was a “major breakthrough” but still won’t say where the money will come from.

Amid prognostications that the jobs bill is "dead" -- including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's announcement that the House won't vote on the bill in its entirety -- Senate Minority Leaders Mitch McConnell said today that he's just itching for a vote on the Senate floor.