The White House issued a statement yesterday that spelled out President Obama’s opposition to the House transportation bill, also known as H.R. 7. The administration’s statement of policy, which coincided with the House Rules Committee hearing on H.R. 7, takes a stand in defense of transit, safety, and the environment: H.R. 7 does not reflect the […]

When the House Ways and Means Committee voted to divert all gas tax revenue away from transit projects, severing transit’s only dedicated source of federal funds, they were essentially throwing transit riders under the bus. While the House’s official stance is that their proposal still somehow guarantees funding for transit, it really does anything but. ”It’s not […]

The Senate picked the right day to make themselves look good by comparison. Today saw a massive mobilization of opposition to House Speaker John Boehner’s five-yeardisaster of a transportation bill, even as he defended it at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. Meanwhile, the Senate voted 85-11 to move forward with Senator Barbara Boxer’s two-year reauthorization proposal. “This is a […]

The transportation-plus-drilling bill that John Boehner and company are trying to ram through the House is an attack on transit riders, pedestrians, cyclists, city dwellers, and every American who can’t afford to drive everywhere. Under this bill, all the dedicated federal funding streams for transit, biking, and walking would disappear, leading to widespread service cuts and more injuries and deaths […]

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 centerpiece was yesterday’s/last night’s/this morning’s Transportation & Infrastructure committee markup, where members debated more than 80 amendments for over 18 hours before […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. The Ways & Means bill [PDF] would funnel all gas tax revenue toward road programs, […]

The House transportation bill will be marked up by the Transportation & Infrastructure committee tomorrow morning, and advocates are fighting for amendments that would improve the provisions for active transportation and transit. The first amendment, introduced by Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI), would restore the Transportation Enhancements and Safe Routes to School programs, consolidated into a single “Transportation […]

John Mica, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, officially unveiled his committee’s transportation bill, the “American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act,” at a press conference outside the House wing of the Capitol this afternoon. (All 846 pages of bill text are here: [PDF]) Streetsblog wrote about some of the bill’s low points last week: no more […]

All eyes are on the House side of Capitol Hill today in anticipation of the Republicans’ grand unveiling of their American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act at 3:00 p.m. But last night, some enduring questions about the Senate’s transportation bill finally got some answers. Senators Tim Johnson and Richard Shelby, respectively the chairman and ranking member of the Senate […]