Highways, Bridges and Roads

The top Democrat on the House Transportation Committee said "putting people to work is much more important right now."

Your morning transportation speed-read:

Police say an airport security employee at Newark International who is accused of using a dead person's identification bought the information from a cab driver.

Officials in California are seeking environmental exemptions for a controversial proposed high-speed railway there.

The opening of a new airport in Berlin has been delayed.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) is raising money for an effort to pass a transportation tax in his state.

The Department of Transportation is proposing a new rule that would require large trucks and buses to have electronic stability control systems on board to help prevent accidents where they roll over.

DOT said Wednesday that the ESC systems could prevent 56 percent of crashes that involve a truck or bus rolling over, and 14 percent of accidents where a truck or bus driver loses control behind the wheel.

"The Department and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have long recognized the potential impact of stability control technology in reducing deaths and serious injuries that result from rollover crashes,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement announcing the new proposal. “Today’s proposal is a major step forward to improving the safety of large commercial trucks, motorcoaches and other large buses.” 

Negotiations on a new federal transportation bill are moving quickly down the road, the chairwoman of the 47-member committee appointed to hammer out a deal between the House and Senate said Tuesday.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told reporters Tuesday that congressional talks over a new spending bill for road and transit projects were "passed the organizational stage" and into the meaty issues of disagreement between the two chambers of Congress.

"We've already had 20 hours of meetings, staff-to-staff," Boxer said during the first of what she promised will be weekly updates on the progress of the transportation funding negotiations. "We're working on the substance of the bill." 

A former Senate Democrat predicted Tuesday that President Obama will eventually approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and suggested that election-year politics are preventing the project from moving forward.

“In my judgment, this pipeline will be built. The question is when is the decision made,” former Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said during an event hosted by the American Petroleum Institute, the powerful oil-industry group.

Dorgan said Obama punted a final decision on the pipeline because his liberal base, including environmental groups, opposes the project, which would carry oil sands crude from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

“I think we all understand that the president is reluctant to move forward because he has some supporters that are concerned about it,” he said.

A union that represents federal workers is urging members of the committee of lawmakers who are attempting to negotiate a new federal transportation bill to not take money from government pensions to help facilitate a deal.

The Washington-based National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said Monday that 47-member conference committee that started negotiations on a new multi-year transportation should look other for revenue to fund road and transit projects than the retirement plans of federal employees. 

"Further cuts to federal compensation will seriously impair the government’s ability to attract or retain talented employees and should not even be under consideration in this conference committee,” NTEU President Colleen Kelley wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

Negotiations in Congress about a new federal transportation bill are moving out of committee rooms and behind the scenes, as lawmakers in the House and Senate continue talks about a possible deal. 

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) told reporters last week that he would likely meet as soon as this week with his counterpart in the Senate, Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

Boxer shepherded a two-year, $109 billion transportation bill through the Senate earlier this year. Mica tried to do the same in the House with a five-year, $260 billion version of the bill, but was ultimately unsuccessful. The House instead passed a pair of short-term extensions of current law that provides funding for road and transit projects.

A pair of Washington-based transportation lobbying groups has won an advertising award for its campaign featuring former Presidents Reagan and Clinton.

The American Public Transportation Association and the American Road and Transportation Builders Association used quotes from the former leaders in a radio ad last year to push lawmakers to approve a multiyear transportation bill that is still hung up in Congress.

In the ad, the conservative hero Reagan argues for spending more on transportation in a speech from the early 1980s.

"The state of our transportation system affects our commerce, our economy and our future," Reagan says in the commercial. 

Your morning transportation speed-read:

A group is trying to raise $10 billion for high-speed rail in Texas.

A Boeing 787 Dreamliner that is being flown to various airports on a tour is still at Washington's Ronald Reagan National.

Voters in Virginia don't really want to spend more money on transportation, according to a new poll.

Chinese auto sales were up in April, but have decreased so far this year.

Rep. Mica on Thursday sounded optimistic notes about negotiators including Keystone in the transportation bill.