Government / Politics
The confirmation of David Bernhardt as Deputy Secretary of the Interior has upset environmentalists and advocates for public land.
The Washington Post
To secure needed votes to pass a vital cap-and-trade bill, Brown made a deal with California's Republican lawmakers that could cost him his legacy infrastructure project—the high-speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
San Francisco Chronicle
The Texas Legislature and executive branch is continuing to wage a battle against local control, this time pursuing a land use law that would undermine zoning code changes, such as the current CodeNEXT process in Austin.
Austin American-Statesman
Companies and workers in the country of Japan are less likely to work from home than in the United States. The government hopes to increase the number of telecommuters during the 2020 Olympics, however.
Quartz
It's not funding Trump's much-talked-about infrastructure package, but the 2020 termination date of the FAST Act has state transportation officials urging Congress to hike fuel taxes to sustain the Highway Trust Fund.
AASHTO Journal
A Next City article argues that investing in job programs and other public goods would do more to make those communities safe than investing in police departments.
Next City
Gov. Jerry Brown, Peninsula congresswomen, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and state legislative leaders gathered in Millbrae with shovels-in hands to mark the beginning of a four-year construction project to electrify Caltrain.
The Daily Journal
While reduced from current levels, the House Appropriations Committee budgeted far more than what President Trump had proposed, but they agreed with him to eliminate the TIGER grant program and reduce transit investments, though by a lesser amount.
The Hill
The Colorado legislature has been unable to agree on a transportation funding package, but the recent bill passed by Oregon has prompted one influential Republican senator to suggest that the state tax bicycle sales.
The Gazette (Colorado Springs)
The nation's only state-run, market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will continue until 2031 without fear of litigation, as it passed with the required two-thirds supermajority needed for tax increases, along with two related bills.
Planetizen
Without an automatic adjustment for gas taxes, revenue from the tax declines due to increasing fuel efficiency standards while road maintenance and construction costs increase due to inflation. Witness Wisconsin's woes.
WUWM (Milwaukee Public Radio)
The California Supreme Court sided with the San Diego Association of Governments on July 13 in the first court case to decide how regional planning agencies must meet state-required reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.
The San Diego Union-Tribune
A new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts that due to a plunge in battery prices and improvement in battery technology, electric vehicles will be cost-competitive with gasoline vehicles in eight years. By 2040, they will outsell them.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Caling the upcoming vote on AB 398, which has created strange political bedfellows, "the most important vote of your life," Gov. Jerry Brown cast the decision as choosing between "massive new regulations" and market-based mechanisms.
San Francisco Chronicle
Open data that no one knows how to use is hardly open at all. A new platform from Esri aims to improve the situation.
CityLab
While premature to claim victory, a report from the San Francisco Chronicle suggests that the California Air Resources Board will prevail in a looming showdown with the U.S. EPA over whether to allow the state to set vehicle emission standards.
San Francisco Chronicle
More than 20 percent of New York's smaller music venues have closed in the past 15 years. Although Brooklyn institution Barbes was recently saved by a crowdfunding campaign, its founder is pessimistic about the future of New York's independent arts.
Soft City
A House of Representatives committee has different ideas about the spending priorities of the federal government when it comes to issues like a proposed border wall and the Great Lakes.
Detroit Free Press
After Gov. Kate Brown signs the comprehensive funding package, Oregon will be the eighth state this year to approve legislation to increase its gas tax and the first ever to add a bike tax to fund bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
The Oregonian
Hoping to give more of a focus and priority to the issues of transportation, the mayor of Denver is proposing a reorganization of city departments.
The Denver Post
