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.

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.

In their third and final presidential debate, Barack Obama and John McCain batted their plans back and forth on environmental issues like oil dependence and climate change, but didn’t offer too many new ideas. (Grist — Kate Sheppard)

CNN looks at the presidential candidates’ plans for investing in infrastructure, highlighting John McCain’s focus on cutting back earmarks and Barack Obama’s proposal to create an infrastructure bank. (Tami Luhby)

Presidential candidate John McCain voted against a bill last week to improve rail safety and increase funding for Amtrak, but Republican legislators from Virginia are working hard to earn his support for a plan to extend DC’s Metrorail to Dulles International Airport. (Washington Post — Michael Laris)

With the financial crisis and $700 billion bailout package dominating conversation in Washington and on the campaign travel, political candidates are avoiding a central economic issue — the need to reinvest in our crumbling infrastructure. (Congressional Quarterly — Colby Itkowitz)

While the real contest is still more than a month away, John McCain has already topped Barack Obama in one less-than-prestigious category — the Arizona Republican owns 13 cars to the Senator from Illinois’ one.

Citing the importance of energy issues this election season, USA Today walks through the positions of Barack Obama and John McCain on gas prices, drilling, climate change, and other major topics. (Paul Davidson and Barbara Hagenbaugh)

Thanks to a media drumbeat and political grandstanding, 51 percent of Americans believe that drilling would immediately bring down gas prices — while the country’s own energy department says that it would not have a significant impact before 2030. (Los Angeles Times — Geoffrey Mohan)

The presidential campaign is heating up and calls for new offshore drilling are growing louder, but the New York Times‘ Bob Herbert points out the obvious problem with all the rhetoric — drilling is not going to do anything for America’s current gas crisis.