Tracking Transport Subsidies: As Tough as Following the Stimulus Money
The $787 billion economic stimulus effort was intended to be a model of
government transparency -- but a privately run website called
Recovery.org soon began beating out the government in the race to trace federal dollars. Now, as the Pew Charitable Trusts begins to expand its Subsidyscope fiscal monitoring project, some similar gaps in spending data are emerging.
August 17, 2009
Oil Industry Tears Page from Health Care Playbook to Battle Climate Bill
Thanks to conservative groups that have worked for months to stoke false rumors about Congress' health care effort, a wave of negative "town hall" stories
is now dominating the media -- and inspiring the oil industry to work
up a similar campaign of its own against the climate change bill.
August 17, 2009
Report: Boxer ‘Sympathetic to’ Backers of More Climate Money for Transit
As Barbara Boxer (D-CA) works on her upcoming climate change bill,
the Senate environment committee chairman is "definitely looking at" a plan
to give green transport 10 percent of the revenue generated from carbon
emissions caps, according to a new report from BNA's Transportation
Watch.
August 14, 2009
Could Electric-Car Tax Credits Become the Next “Cash for Clunkers”?
The White House's commitment to electrified cars, fulfilling an Obama campaign promise to put 1 million plug-in hybrids into service by 2015, is bound to have serious ramifications for the nation's already-crumbling system of paying for transportation.
August 14, 2009
Distracted Driving Laws Lack Teeth in Some States, Not CA
For a story today
on the political challenge of outlawing texting behind the wheel, the
Washington Post sent its reporter to a downtown intersection to track
whether drivers were obeying the city's ban on hand-held cell phones.
August 13, 2009
Obama Administration Touts Nation’s First All-Electronic Toll Road in N.C.
The U.S. DOT dispatched Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez to North Carolina yesterday to kick off construction of the $1 billion Triangle Expressway, the state’s first toll road and the nation’s first to use per-mile electronic tolling. The scene at yesterday’s N.C. toll road groundbreaking. (Photo: WRAL) The highway was financed by a package of … Continued
August 13, 2009
Electric Cars and the Future of the Gas Tax
GM's highly publicized claim to triple-digit fuel efficiency for its new Chevy Volt has sparked a debate over the solidity of the estimate as well as the lack of charging stations where non-garage-owners could charge a Volt. But another byproduct of the rise of electric vehicles is getting less attention: its effect on the nation's transportation funding crisis.
August 12, 2009
Transport Construction Industry Mobilizes for Oberstar’s Bill
Acrimonious opposition to health care reform has become
the biggest political story of an otherwise sleepy August, but that
doesn't mean grassroots lobbying on the House's six-year transportation
bill has evaporated.
August 12, 2009
Senate’s New DOT Spending Bill Eases One Transit Funding Barrier
During the lengthy process
of pursuing a "New Starts" funding agreement with the U.S. DOT, local
transit officials are often at the mercy of cost-benefit calculations
that have failed to keep pace with evolutions in transport planning.
But one aspect of that slog could soon change, thanks to Sen. Patty
Murray (D-WA).
August 11, 2009
New ‘Clunkers’ Analysis: Trucks, SUVs More Popular Than Suggested
When the Obama administration first called for more "cash for clunkers" last week, two influential senators said they could not back an extension without stronger efficiency standards for the program's trade-ins -- only to drop their opposition after viewing U.S. DOT sales figures that showed buyers snapping up gas-sipping cars.
August 11, 2009