Infrastructure

New rules exempt rebuilding projects from lengthy environmental reviews if they stem from a "natural disaster or catastrophic failure."

Your morning transportation speed-read:

Outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood praised President Obama's State of the Union address Wednesday for its a road repair program. 

Obama called in his speech for lawmakers to create a "Fix-it-First" program to use federal money to encourage public-private partnerships to fund transportation improvements in the country.

Obama said the program would repair as many as 70,000 structurally deficient bridges.

In a blog post on the Department of Transportation website Wednesday, LaHood said the program would provide boost employment in the U.S.

"President Obama knows what we at DOT also know: fixing the roads, rails, bridges, ports, transit systems, and other transportation assets most in need of attention will create jobs and help our businesses compete more effectively," he wrote.  

An increase in taxes that are collected by the federal government when drivers purchase gas for their cars is "inescapable," former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) said Wednesday.

Rendell was testifying at a hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The hearing was called by the panel's chairman, Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), to examine the federal role in funding infrastructure development in the U.S. 

Rendell, who is now running an advocacy group in Washington called "Building America's Future," used the opportunity to take lawmakers to task for not appropriating enough revenue for road and transit projects in recent years.

"I know it's difficult time to consider taxes, but we have to fund the transportation system," Rendell said. "The inescapable reality is in the short term, that is going to require an increase in the gas tax."

President Obama called for program to encourage public-private partnerships to fund transportation improvements. 

Ahead of his first full meeting as House Transportation Committee Chairman, Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) will speak at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's infrastructure summit.

The summit is scheduled to take on Wednesday morning.

It will be followed approximately two hours later by a hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee intended to debate the "federal role" for government spending on road and transit projects.

The largest collection of unions that represents transportation workers is urging President Obama to go big on their industries in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

“The president has a chance tomorrow night to make the case for rebuilding our nation, beginning with the expansion of our depleted transportation system and infrastructure," AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department President Ed Wytkind said in a statement.

Wytkind said he hoped Obama would also use his prime-time address to both chambers of Congress to defend the role of unions.

Lawmakers on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will engage in an age-old debate this week: What role should the federal government have in transportation spending?

The committee's first full hearing under its new chairman, Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), will be an examination of the "federal role in America's infrastructure."

The Pennsylvania lawmaker is a second-generation Transportation Committee chairman: his father, former Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), chaired the same body from 1995 until 2001.

The younger Shuster has indicated he will use the Wednesday hearing to try to convince staunch conservative members of his party to exempt transportation from their proposals to scale back spending.

“Transportation and infrastructure have long been recognized as federal responsibilities shared with the states," Shuster said in a statement. 

New House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) has scheduled a hearing on the "federal role in America's infrastructure."

The hearing, scheduled for Wednesday morning, will be Shuster's first since taking over the House Transportation Committee last month.

The Pennsylvania lawmaker and second-generation Transportation Committee chairman has indicated he will try to convince staunch conservative members of his party to exempt transportation from their proposals to scale back government spending.

“Transportation and infrastructure have long been recognized as federal responsibilities shared with the states," Shuster, whose father, Bud, was Transportation Committee chairman in the 1990s, said in a statement.  

The outgoing Transportation secretary said the nation's infrastructure was "falling way behind other countries."