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Posts Tagged ‘Congress’

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Transportation for Older Adults

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014
Table 1: Older Americans Act Title III Part B Transportation Spending and Rides 2010 through 2012 (Spending and Rides in Millions)

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
State and local transportation agencies and aging organizations in the four states GAO visited used a variety of mechanisms to coordinate transportation services for older adults. For example, many state and local activities are currently focused on mobility management approaches—such as travel training programs—to help older adults identify and access the various transportation resources available. Some organizations GAO interviewed have also implemented more extensive approaches to coordination that are intended to help older adults access transportation services, such as offering a wide range of volunteer transportation.

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Transportation Policy and Funding in the Post-Election Climate

Wednesday, November 12th, 2014

Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 25, No. 15
The mid-term elections have put an end to any lingering hope of passing a long-term transportation bill during the congressional lame duck session. Such hope was recently expressed by Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, and two Democratic senators, Tom Carper (D-DE) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee…But with the November elections heralding a fiscally more conservative political climate and with Congress preoccupied with a whole lot of unfinished business, passing a massive multi-year multi-billion funding bill for transportation during the lame duck session will be the last thing on the lawmakers’ minds.

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Obama’s Disappointing Legacy on Transportation Policy

Monday, October 20th, 2014

Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 25, No. 14
For a long time, the nation’s transportation policy escaped critical scrutiny. Not any longer. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) — hardly a partisan anti-Obama cabal —has published a hard-hitting but carefully balanced critique of the Administration’s handling of the federal transportation program. Authored by Rebecca Strauss, associate editor of CFR’s “Renewing America” policy briefs, the article singles out a series of failed policy initiatives, notably Obama’s signature high-speed rail project (“it has turned into an embarrassment”), proposals for a $10 billion infrastructure bank and a $50 billion “Fix-it-First” program (both ignored by Congress); and failure to submit to Congress a legislative proposal for a multi-year surface transportation program for the first five-and-a-half years of the presidency.

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Posted in Funding, Innovation Newsbriefs, National, Policy, Recovery, Republican, The Infra Blog

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Public Private Partnerships: Balancing the needs of the public and private sectors to finance the nation’s infrastructure

Friday, September 26th, 2014
Figure 1: PPPs Worldwide, Nominal Cost (in Billions), 1985-2011

HOUSE TRANSPORTATION & INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE
Around the world, P3s play a significant role in the development and delivery of transportation and infrastructure projects. Internationally, P3s have had a mixed record of success and failure. The Panel found that successful P3s have several common elements, including leveraging the strengths of the public and private sectors, appropriate risk transfer, transparent and flexible contracts, and alignment of policy goals…Unlike most other countries, the United States possesses a robust municipal bond market of approximately $3.7 trillion, of which a significant portion is for infrastructure financing. The Panel found that this is one major reason why the U.S. P3 market has not grown as quickly as in other countries (which do not offer tax-exempt municipal bonds) and why the potential for P3s in the United States is limited.

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The Changing Nature of State-Federal Relations in Transportation

Monday, August 4th, 2014

Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 25, No. 11
With the Republicans likely to control the Senate next year and the presidential elections casting a shadow over any new proposal to raise taxes, there will be a huge temptation for Congress to kick the can down the road once again — beyond the presidential election and into the next Congress. Remember, it took three years and eight short-term extensions to pass the last reauthorization, MAP-21!

Fortunately, many individual states are trying to compensate for the lack of congressional action on long term funding by raising additional revenue of their own. Our survey has identified more than 30 states that have launched transportation-related fiscal initiatives in the past two years.

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Open Letter from Secretary Foxx and 11 Former DOT Secretaries Urging Congress to Address Long-Term Transportation Needs

Saturday, July 26th, 2014

As Congress considers legislation to avoid a shortfall of the Highway Trust Fund, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and 11 of his predecessors offered the following open letter to Congress. In addition to Secretary Foxx, Secretaries Ray LaHood, Mary Peters, Norman Mineta, Rodney Slater, Federico Peña, Samuel Skinner, Andrew Card, James Burnley, Elizabeth Dole, William Coleman and Alan Boyd all signed the letter. Their message: Congress’ work doesn’t end with the bill under consideration. Transportation in America still needs a much larger, longer-term investment.

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U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Production in Federal and Non-Federal Areas

Friday, April 18th, 2014
Figure 1: U.S. Crude Oil Production: Federal and Non-Federal Areas, FY2009-2013

CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
A key question in this discussion is how much oil and gas is produced in the United States each year and how much of that comes from federal versus non-federal areas. Oil production has fluctuated on federal lands over the past five fiscal years but has increased dramatically on nonfederal lands. Non-federal crude oil production has been rapidly increasing in the past few years partly due to favorable geology and the relative ease of leasing from private parties, rising by 2.1 million barrels per day (mbd) between FY2009-FY2013, causing the federal share of total U.S. crude oil production to fall by nearly 11%.

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The Stunning Collapse Of Infrastructure Spending In One Chart

Thursday, November 7th, 2013
Collapsing Bridge

THINKPROGRESS
By Alan Pyke
After hovering around $300 billion per year from the middle of President George W. Bush’s tenure through 2010, government spending on building things not related to defense fell by about $60 billion in just a few years. The drop is a result of Republicans blocking President Obama’s efforts to invest in infrastructure that the country needs.

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Are We Ignoring the Obvious Solution to the Transportation Funding Crisis? (Cont’d)

Friday, August 16th, 2013

Innovation Newsbriefs
Vol. 24, No. 11
The inability of Congress to pass even a simple annual appropriations bill does not bode well for a congressional agreement on the much more complex and costly multi-year surface transportation bill that must be reauthorized by October 2014.

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The Barriers to Expanding Coal Exports

Friday, June 21st, 2013
The Barriers to Expanding Coal Exports, and Congress’ Role

Transportation Issues Daily Tuesday morning the U.S. House Energy Committee will learn more about barriers to and concerns about exporting coal and LNG. Read the briefing memo prepared for Committee Members and staff. More specifically, the following questions will be addressed during the hearing: What specific barriers are there to exporting coal and LNG in […]

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