Transportation Reauthorization

Treasury Secretary Ray LaHood warned Congress that according to a recent Congressional Budget Office report, the Highway Trust Fund will be broke come fiscal year 2014, due largely to more fuel-efficient vehicles and less driving.

The long awaited Transportation bill unveiled this week by House Republicans, the “American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act,” follows an unsurprisingly partisan path to solving few of the country's transportation challenges.

Gabriel Roth, a civil engineer, transportation economist and research fellow is fed up with the federal government's inability to fully fund transportation and suggests that its time to hand off responsibility to the states.

To maintain current transportation spending levels in the new reauthorization bill, Speaker Boehner is proposing a bill to fill the shortfall from projected federal gas tax revenues with the royalties expected from new oil and gas drilling.

Politico recaps the findings of the two federal commissions authorized by the last transportation bill. While their findings are not hopeful, they do present a better outlook for a change 'down the road' - perhaps in a future authorization bill.

After a mere 45 minutes of debate on the House floor, Obama's requested transportation bill extension was approved by voice vote - unanimously. The extension will be for six months (not four as Senate committee had approved) and extends the gas tax.

In advance of the President's key jobs speech Thursday, the Senate committee in charge of transportation approved a 4-month extension of the current transportation bill that expired Sept., 2009. It heads to the Senate floor next.

The S.C. Dept. of Transportation is so broke that it won't be able to pay its contractors after meeting its payroll. It is depending on a payment from the FHWA and requesting additional reimbursements while rejecting federal funds for education.

House Transportation And Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica, R-Fl, in this opinion in the Orlando Sentinel, states his position on tolling the nation's interstate highways. He supports tolling only if applied to newly constructed lanes.

The WSJ report indicates that the debate that led to the FAA ticket tax suspension was just a prelude as to what to expect on Sept. 30 when the federal gas tax expires.

Four thousand FAA workers furloughed and 70,000 contractors were laid off as a result of a congressional disagreement on subsidies to rural airports and a labor provision.

Matthew Yglesias writes on the upcoming expiration of the federal gas tax as the next political hurdle facing a divided Congress that has enormous infrastructure and budget deficit implications. The Republican 'no new taxes' pledge may apply.

Politicians say it all the time - "Americans will never stand for a gas tax increase", but how do they know? A survey of 1,500 adults under the direction of Mineta Transportation Institute found otherwise. A VMT fee and sales tax was also surveyed.

Politicians say it all the time - "Americans will never stand for a gas tax increase", but how do they know? A survey of 1,500 adults under the direction of Mineta Transportation Institute found otherwise. A VMT fee and sales tax was also surveyed.

A draft is circulating within the Beltway showing the president's transportation reauthorization bill. High Speed Rail is in, as is a 'Livability Program'. Goodby Highway Trust Fund - Hello Transportation Fund.

More than 2 years after it expired, the federal transportation bill is likely to be reauthorized soon, according to Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

DOT Secretary Ray LaHood is taped while speaking at a community meeting in Manhattan's Chinatown expressing enthusiasm for 'tolling', though it's not clear what roads or bridges would be tolled, which was clarified in a subsequent email.

Tensions have arisen between the Obama administration and Oberstar, who is anxious to get working on the transportation reauthorization bill. DOT Secretary LaHood is calling for an extension of the 2005 highway bill instead.

The concept of "livability" seems to be catching on -- both at a local level and up in the federal government. This is especially true in the Department of Transportation. That could mean bad news for the road building lobby.

Barring that, he has some eight proposals for the transportation reauthorization bill, including eliminating long-range transportation planning and clean air mandates.