Elana Schor

Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday struck a deal ahead of Friday’s make-or-break vote on climate change legislation to give greener transportation a place at the table. The climate bill gives the states 10 percent of its carbon emissions allowances, the total worth of which is projected to hit $70 billion by … Continued

Mere hours after the Washington Metro system suffered a shocking accident, two senior senators released a letter to their colleagues asking for $50 million in grants to improve rail safety technology. The scene of yesterday’s D.C. Metro crash. (Photo: NYT) The letter was sent by two chairmen with a central role in transportation policy — … Continued

Policy wonks across the capital are still poring over the 775-page bill released earlier today by Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House transportation committee. But searching the legislation for the key topics being debated by transportation reformers reveals new details and raises new questions. The most common phrase in the bill may well be three innocuous words: "to be supplied." This is in no small part thanks to the uncertain future of funding for Oberstar's $450 billion plan, a problem compounded by a White House preoccupied with health care and in no mood to raise the gas tax.

As their committee's leaders butted heads with the Obama administration, a group of Republicans on the House transportation panel proposed to fill the $7 billion hole in the nation's highway trust fund with unobligated money from the economic stimulus law.

Senior members of the House transportation committee today fired a warning shot at those pushing an 18-month extension of existing federal law, putting the Obama administration and key senators on notice that their $450 billion proposal would move forward this year.

(editor's note: Elana Schor has done yeoman's work analyzing the newly released white paper from Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) which very well could end up being the framework for the next authorization of the Federal Transportation Trust Fund.  Oberstar's work on this issue really puts the "work" done by the Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee Chair, Barbara Boxer, to shame.  You can read all of Elana's coverage, including a look at the highways-transit split and funding for metro areas proposed by Oberstar at Capitol Hill Streetsblog.)

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and a key player in the federal transportation re-write, just released a statement hailing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s call for an 18-month extension of the existing transport law: I am very pleased that the White House is being proactive in working with the … Continued

The disparity between the 13 percent of road fatalities suffered by non-drivers and the amount that the federal government spends on their safety -- less than one percent -- may come as a surprise to some Americans. But the situation is far worse in the developing world, according to a new World Health Organization report.

Despite a growing awareness among conservatives that walking and biking are causes worth backing, Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to condemn bike-ped programs as wasteful "pork". The GOP's latest potshots at sustainable transportation come during debate over a health care bill that focuses mainly on insurance and hospitals, but also includes a public health grant program aimed at encouraging exercise.

The nation's largest metropolitan areas -- which account for 63 percent of the U.S. population and 73 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) -- have received less than half of the surface transportation money allocated so far under the Obama administration's economic stimulus plan, according to a new report compiled for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.