Revised and Updated on January 12, 2012 Download a PDF version with hyperlinks to House and Senate Appropriations Committee documents: Appropriations Tracker: FY 2012 Designed to inform American policymakers and citizens, the…
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation needs to collect substantial information about aircraft flying in U.S. airspace in order to ensure safety in air travel. The FAA also must share flight data with the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and law enforcement…
Growing dissatisfaction with federal transportation policy and government’s mismanagement of the highway trust fund have encouraged many in Congress and in state governments to seek ways to overhaul the system or to extract themselves from it. Since the mid-1990s, legislation has been introduced each year in Congress to phase out…
Under the laws governing the federal highway program, the federal fuel taxes paid into the trust fund by motorists (18.3 cents per gallon) and truckers are returned to the states by a series of mathematical formulas that attempt to match the scope and usage of each state’s surface transportation system…
Abstract: The 2010 Heritage Foundation report “Washington’s War on Cars and the Suburbs” disputed Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s claims that public transit produces substantial economic benefits, consumes only one-fifth the energy of cars, and saves billions in other costs. The author of the 2004…
Abstract: Many of the claims and assertions that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood makes on behalf of the transit industry are inconsistent with the data and studies produced by many agencies of the federal government, including his own Department of Transportation. Secretary LaHood…
Advocates of more federal spending for highways and transit note that the federal fuel tax (currently 18.3 cents per gallon of gasoline) has not been raised since 1993 and that the 17-year freeze has limited the financial resources of the highway trust fund and its ability…
Among the many contentious issues that will confront Congress in the months leading up to reauthorization of the federal highway program (now postponed until December 2010) is the program’s inherent inequities relating to the distribution of federal trust fund revenues to the states. Under current law, the federal fuel…
As gasoline prices approached or exceeded $4 per gallon around the United States, two presidential candidates and some Members of Congress have recommended that the federal fuel tax be suspended in June, July, and August of this year to provide financial relief to American drivers. Under current law, motorists and…
The U.S. Department of Transportation imposed new regulations on airlines Jan. 24 that were supposed to benefit...…
On September 26, the Department of Transportation (DOT) published a rule requiring modification of airline Web sites...…
Yesterday, I wrote about the House-passed bill H.R. 2887, which would reauthorize expiring aviation and surface...…
The House passed today H.R. 2887, a bill to reauthorize expiring aviation and surface transportation programs for a...…
President Obama is accustomed to having his way—like trying to dictate the date and time when Congress would assemble...…
As the President’s ambitious passenger rail program falters, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood is attempting...…
The Obama administration is still in denial about the message the American people sent Washington last Tuesday. In...…
In the 18 months following approval of President Obama’s stimulus package, the Department of Transportation required...…
“But don't expect anyone in Congress to admit that taxpayers are paying around $6,000 to provide a $4,500 rebate for a...…