reauthorization

The Highway Trust Fund Is Doomed 0
- May 4, 2012
Congress is wrangling over how to spend federal gas taxes, with the Senate wanting to spend about $15 billion per year more than revenues while the House modestly wants to spend only about $10 billion per year more than revenues. But according to the Congressional Budget Office, the money they have to argue about will […]
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Transportation Bill Going to Conference Committee 0
- April 23, 2012
The House and Senate plan to hold conference committee negotiations over the transportation reauthorization bill. Early this year, the House Transportation Committee had approved the most fiscally conservative reauthorization bill considered by congress since 1991, if not since 1982. Yet the bill never reached the floor of the House due to opposition from fiscal conservatives […]
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Congress Extends Transportation Bill 90 Days 0
- March 30, 2012
The Senate reluctantly agreed to a 90-day extension of the 2005 transportation bill. This means the federal government will continue to spend more money on transit and highways than it collects in gas taxes and other highway fees. Senate Democrats rancorously blamed the 90-day extension, as opposed to the two-year extension passed by the Senate, […]
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Brinkmanship 0
- March 29, 2012
Having failed to pass a reauthorization bill, Congress has only a few hours to extend the current law, which expires on Saturday. On Tuesday, however, the House failed to pass a 90-day extension to the law. On Wednesday, it failed to pass a 60-day extension to the law. Supporters of an extension are are making […]
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Hiding in the Bills 0
- March 28, 2012
One of the special-interest provisions in the transportation bill that passed the Senate a couple of weeks ago is a requirement that operators of passenger trains be licensed by the Surface Transportation Board. There is one and only one exception: Amtrak. Supposedly, this could give Amtrak an edge when it competes with other companies for […]
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Shooting Themselves in Their Feet 0
- March 15, 2012
After fiscal conservatives successfully scuttled a House transportation bill that would have ended pork and allowed Congress to minimize deficit spending, the Senate has passed a bill that is full of pork and will practically mandate deficit spending. The good news, such as it is, is that the bill only reauthorizes federal spending for two […]
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