The Tuesday after Labor Day is like back to school day in Washington. Congress is back after a month-long recess and the sleepiest month of the year in D.C. ends with a long holiday weekend before Congress gets back in session. With that in mind, we thought it would be good to do a quick [...]

The House has not yet released the full text of a transportation bill proposal, but the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has released an outline of the principles that will be included in the bill. We posted an analysis of the outline here. This is one in a short series of posts looking into some of [...]

The House has not yet released the full text of a transportation bill proposal, but the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has released an outline of the principles that will be included in the bill. We posted a short analysis of the outline here. This is one in a series of posts looking into some of [...]

The House’s transportation proposal would cut total transportation funding by one-third, kill the tiny slice of dedicated funding for safer walking and biking and drastically reduce transit support, while failing to focus on fixing and repairing our crumbling roads and bridges. There’s still a good chance for a better Senate bill, so weigh in with your Senators today.

Here’s a downloadable PDF version of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s just-released summary of their forthcoming transportation bill. We’ll have some analysis and a statement later today. Click here or on image to download

Funding for high-speed rail was eliminated from this year’s budget as other transportation programs absorbed deep cuts, according to the details of the deal between President Obama and Congressional Republicans to cut $38 billion in spending and keep the government funded through September. The New Starts program, a key source of funding for transit projects, is reduced to $1.6 billion, while the TIGER program is reduced to $528 million from $600 million, a loss of $72 million.

Down-to-the-wire negotiations late last night between President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid resulted in a budget deal containing about $38 billion in reductions from current spending levels and the prevention of a government shutdown. The High Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail program will receive $1 billion, a reduction of $1.5 billion from the previous year, and the New Starts program — a key revenue source for transit projects throughout the country — loses $280 million, though the figure is reportedly sufficient to fund projects that have already received grants from USDOT.

The federal government will keep the lights on next week after the U.S. Senate easily approved a two-week stopgap measure containing $4 billion in spending cuts. The vote was 91-9. Only two budget items – $650 million from a one-time Federal Highway Administration program – and a handful of legislative earmarks are transportation related.

UPDATE, 2/19/11, 9am: The House voted 235-189 in favor of an FY2011 budget containing $60 billion in spending cuts, including $430 million in cuts to the New Starts program that funds new transit construction, $152 million in cuts to Amtrak and a zeroing out of both high-speed rail and the innovative TIGER program. No Democrats supported the continuing resolution and three Republicans opposed it.

On the Friday before the President releases his budget for 2012 (forthcoming sometime this morning), the House Appropriations Committee, led by Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) released their funding proposal to carry the government through the rest of 2011. Quick refresher: The government is currently operating under what’s known as a Continuing Resolution (CR) that expires [...]