Recent Streetsblog SF posts about House of Representatives

Just How Lame Will This Lame Duck Be?

By Tanya Snyder | Nov 9, 2010 | No Comments

The GOP has named the 22 members of its transition team and it’s ready to get to work. Don’t expect the work for these lawmakers to include any actual law-making, though. Not till January, anyway. The lame duck session, which begins Monday, has a long agenda. On the list of have-to’s: Coming to some agreement […]

Republicans Line Up to Oppose Obama’s Transportation Proposal

By Adam Voiland | Sep 8, 2010 | No Comments

The critical multi-year transportation bill, which lawmakers have sidelined since last summer as they’ve quarreled about how to pay for it, looks to be back on the agenda after President Obama’s pugnacious Labor Day speech, in which he called on Congress to ramp up investment in transportation. The broad outline of Obama’s plan calls for […]

The Problems With Ports, or Why We Need a National Freight Act

By Tanya Snyder | Aug 6, 2010 | No Comments

Maybe you commute by train, or maybe you’ve switched from driving to biking. But your stuff is still traveling the country by diesel truck. Containers at the Port of Oakland. Photo: NOAA Nearly a quarter of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions come from freight. The movement of goods from port of entry to a store near […]

House Approves Transpo Spending Bill After Stripping Out $ for Livability

By Noah Kazis | Jul 30, 2010 | No Comments

Congressmen Oberstar and Blumenauer, here speaking together at the 2007 Bike Summit, were on opposite sides of a dispute about increased funding for livability programs yesterday. Photo: Bike Portland The House of Representatives passed its 2011 appropriations bill for Transportation and Housing and Urban Development yesterday, significantly increasing the amount going to both highways and […]

Obama Aide Defends Transit Safety Plan as Different from Rail Rules

By Elana Schor | Apr 21, 2010 | No Comments

Federal Transit Administration (FTA) chief Peter Rogoff today mounted a defense of the White House’s transit safety plan, assuring some skeptical members of Congress that he does not want to "replicate" inter-city rail safety rules that have taken flak for impeding the development of viable U.S. train networks. As of last year, D.C.’s Metro had […]

Transportation Filibuster Update: Bunning Won’t Yield to Fellow GOPer

By Elana Schor | Mar 2, 2010 | No Comments

Federal infrastructure funding and many U.S. DOT workers remain in limbo today as Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) continues his one-man filibuster of legislation extending the 2005 transport law, turning himself into a Democratic target and a poster child for Washington gridlock. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) was heard quipping "tough s—t" as he began blocking an […]

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