Recent Streetsblog SF posts about U.S. Senate

Transport Policy Update: Senate to Pass 6-Month Extension This Week

By Elana Schor | Oct 27, 2009 | No Comments

Before week’s end, the Senate will pass a six-month extension of the nation’s four-year-old transportation law — setting the stage for another showdown with the House, where transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar remains on the fence about abandoning the push for a new long-term bill before 2010. Photo: USGS.gov Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) […]

GOP Senators Protest Evaluating the Climate Impacts of Transport Projects

By Elana Schor | Oct 26, 2009 | 1 Comment

The 40-year-old National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), which requires the federal government to evaluate the environmental consequences of future projects, is a valuable tool for local residents and green groups that work to defeat highway expansions — but as Streetsblog L.A. noted earlier this year, NEPA can be an equally valuable tool for opponents of […]

Senate Climate Bill Triples the House’s Investments in Clean Transportation

By Elana Schor | Oct 26, 2009 | No Comments

The Senate environment committee released new details of its climate change legislation over the weekend, including the share of "emissions allowances" — the revenue generated by regulating carbon in a cap-and-trade system — that the bill would reserve for various sectors of the American economy. Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the climate […]

Two More Senate Dems Back Plan to Devote Climate Money to Transit

By Elana Schor | Oct 8, 2009 | No Comments

This week has brought news of a brewing compromise on the Senate climate change bill, introduced last month amid signals that the upper chamber would give only a bit more to clean transportation than the House’s meager 1 percent set-aside of revenue from cap-and-trade carbon regulations. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) (Photo: Sun-Sentinel) The stirrings of […]

Is a Bigger Transportation Bill — This Year — Back on the Table?

By Elana Schor | Oct 6, 2009 | No Comments

That’s the suggestion that an anonymous "Senate aide" made to Bloomberg News this morning, recounting a possible White House change of heart as mounting job losses stoke new debate over a second stimulus bill: Administration officials have told allies in Congress that a broader transportation bill, and extensions of a homebuyer tax credit and unemployment […]

Senate Passes One-Month Extension of Transport Law … For Now

By Elana Schor | Sep 30, 2009 | No Comments

By a vote of 62-38, the Senate has passed a one-month extension of the 2005 transportation law, which was set to expire at midnight tonight and leave state DOTs without a steady source of funding for road, bridge, and transit projects. But the one-month stopgap, which was approved by the House last week, does not […]

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