NYT Editorial Blasts House Transportation Bill

Calling it "uniquely terrible", the Times questions whether it will even survive a full floor vote in the House. The editorial lists three major problems with the bill, but notes there are many more.

February 10, 2012, 6am PST | Irvin Dawid

The Times reminds its readers that it was the president so revered today by House Republicans, Ronald Reagan, that signed the the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 that created the Mass Transit Account that they wish to eliminate. The bill also increased the gas tax by five cents - a 125% increase over the existing four cent tax.

"It would make financing for mass transit much less certain, and more vulnerable, by ending a 30-year agreement that guaranteed mass transit a one-fifth share of the fuel taxes and other user fees in the highway trust fund.

It would open nearly all of America's coastal waters to oil and gas drilling, including environmentally fragile areas that have long been off limits.

It would demolish significant environmental protections by imposing arbitrary deadlines on legally mandated environmental reviews of proposed road and highway projects."

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EDITORIAL - A Terrible Transportation Bill

Published on Thursday, February 9, 2012 in The New York Times - The Opinion Pages