Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood didn’t pull any punches in a blog post this week about one senator’s “stimulus waste” list. Senator Tom Coburn is a persistent critic of transportation “enhancements” and author of a failed amendment earlier this year to strip bicycle and pedestrian projects from a spending bill. His latest waste list includes two bike paths. Coburn told the Washington Times, “When we run $1.4 trillion deficits, the money we spend ought to be a high priority for the American people as a whole.” To which LaHood retorts: “What he really means is that, because he doesn’t get bikes, no one else does either.”

Two weeks ago, we were successful in beating back a handful of dangerous amendments to the yearly transportation budget in the Senate that would have broken federal promises to fund crucial, long-planned public transportation, passenger rail and bike/pedestrian projects. In less than 48 hours, supporters like yourselves sent more than 10,000 messages to your Senators in opposition of these dangerous amendments. Your quick action was instrumental in letting the Senate know that it’s important we continue funding alternatives to driving that can help us use less oil, cut our emissions, bike and walk safely and reduce the amount of time we spend in congestion each day.

We wrote yesterday about some very dangerous amendments from Senators McCain and Coburn, asking you to take action to help preserve funding for desperately-needed bike and pedestrian facilities. We’re happy to report that Senator Coburn’s amendments were defeated, preserving critical funding for bicycle and pedestrian facilities across the country. We thank you for taking the time to weigh in with your Senator. The Coburn amendment failed with only 39 votes in favor.

As you may have read on Streetsblog yesterday, Senator John McCain has just proposed 20 amendments to a transportation funding bill that have one common theme: Breaking a federal promise to fund long-planned public transportation projects. Senators are expected to vote TODAY on these amendments: Please write your senators now and tell them to vote NO on this assault on clean, oil-saving transportation projects – and to encourage their colleagues to do the same.