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Preparing Transportation for Climate Change
This past Sunday at church, my daughter and I heard a story based on a children’s book that delighted her and caught my attention too. You may have heard of it – “Ming Lo Moves the Mountain.” It’s a clever parable about a family frustrated...
Targeting Our Efforts to Reduce National Oil Addiction, Part Two
Last week I wrote about a new analysis by NRDC, The Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters of gasoline use across the country, specifically comparing counties to one another to determine which are sponging up most gasoline and therefore...
Memo to Federal and State Highway Agencies: Keep CMAQ Funds On Track to Cut Pollution
Congress included an innovative program in the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) that for over 20 years has helped clean up the environment by providing funds for transportation projects designed to reduce traffic...
How CBO Got it Wrong on Fuel Consumption and the Highway Trust Fund
The authors of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study released last week must have been sniffing gas fumes when they drastically overestimated the effects of the proposed fuel economy standards on the Highway Trust Fund. The study claims...
Getting Things Done: What's at Stake for Congress in the Transportation Bill
Did you see this eye-catching opinion piece about the polarization in Congress drawn from a new book by a couple of authors who wrote The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get it Back on Track (which is...
Failing to Communicate the Promise of Transportation Investments
The Miller Center at the University of Virginia (full disclosure: my alma mater) rolled out its latest report, fittingly entitled “Are We There Yet? Selling America on Transportation” (pdf here). It’s based on a conversation they convened last fall...
Reckless vs. Responsible: Dueling Infrastructure Philosophies
Here's the state-of-play with transportation law:The Senate passed a bill, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, MAP-21, by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 74-22. This lobbed a nice easy proposal to the chamber on the other side of...
A House Divided: Transportation Law Delayed, Yet Again
It's only Tuesday and already it's another disappointing week for transportation law. The House GOP has shelved its 90-day extension due to - surprise! - inability to get the votes to pass it. A 60-day extension is in the offing now, with the vote...
Cutting the Cost of Gasoline: It's About Gallons, Not Prices
Everyone is fixated on the numerator in the price-per-gallon equation, especially the media and politicians. I would argue, fellow consumers, that they are dead wrong to turn a blind eye to the denominator. It calls out for attention, since we can...
Promising to Slash Gas Prices is "Economic Nonsense"
Oddly enough, I found myself nodding vigorously while listening to George Will yesterday on This Week. He derided politicians who claim to be able to move globally determined oil prices enough to influence gas prices dramatically, saying they might...
House Transportation Bill is Fiscally Reckless
This week we have confirmation that the Republican Leadership has hijacked the transportation bill, with Congressman LaTourette of Ohio confirming that the bill was written by Speaker John Boehner (although LaTourette himself, along with many others...
Worst. Transportation Bill. Ever.
Partisanship is the reason for constant gridlock in Congress. One exception has been the issue of transportation. NRDC is on the record -- analyzing and critiquing yet supporting -- the bipartisan federal transportation bill that...
