Infrastructure

Your morning transportation speed-read:

The chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board accused a Canadian company of handling a Michigan oil spill in 2010 "like the Keystone Cops."

A transportation tax in Georgia is facing long odds.

Chicago's O'Hare International Airport is getting $40 million in upgrades at its United Airlines terminal.

Car sales in China rose 9 percent in the month of June.

Your morning transportation speed-read:

A Egyptian couple has been accused of hiding a baby in their carry-on luggage on a flight from the United Arab Emirates.

Amtrak is proposing 37-minute high-speed rail trips between New York and Philadelphia.

The air traffic control tower at Newark's Liberty International Airport was evacuated after smoke was found in an elevator shaft.

Massachusetts "Big Dig" is projected to cost the state $24.3 billion.

A key environmental group is gearing up for the next fight over transportation spending, before President Obama's signature formally ends the most recent one on Friday.

The New York City-based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said Friday that the two-year, $105 billion transportation bill Obama is scheduled to sign contained too many anti-environment provisions.

“This has not been a pretty process, watching House Republicans delay a jobs bill while trying to load it with a slew of anti-environmental provisions," NRDC federal transportation policy director Deron Lovaas said in a statement.

"While the worst riders were dropped, the result still was a mess of a bill that reduces public oversight of highway projects and cuts funding for transportation choices that would have reduced traffic while lessening our dependence on oil," he continued. "We will work toward a better result in two years, when Congress again must take up this important issue.”

The nonpartisan scorekeeper said the legislative package would save $16.3 billion over 10 years.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is scoring the expected votes Friday on a $105 billion transportation bill.

The business lobby strongly supports the package, and is pushing lawmakers in the House and Senate to vote in favor of it.

"This is a will-score vote for us," Chamber executive director of transportation and infrastructure Janet Kavinoky told The Hill on Friday morning. "This is obviously the only transportation bill we're going to get this year."

Several prominent conservative groups are on the other side, however, and have promised to hold votes in favor of the compromise against lawmakers in November’s elections. 

The Senate adjourned Thursday evening without voting on three major pieces of legislation with fast approaching deadlines.

An environmental group said Thursday that the agreement reached by lawmakers on a $105 billion surface transportation bill made "unacceptable changes to landmark environmental protections and wastes taxpayer dollars by ignoring environmental impacts that could be avoided."

In a deal painstakingly negotiated over two months, the House and Senate agreed on a transportation bill that accepted several Republican proposals to weaken Environmental Protection Agency regulations they argued had been gridlocking construction projects.

Negotiators also jettisoned a provision in the Senate's original version of the transportation bill that would have provided money for the land and water conservation trust fund, much to the chagrin of the Washington, D.C.-based Wilderness Society.

“The highway bill is meant to be about the infrastructure of the nation. Leaving the Land and Water Conservation Fund in a roadside ditch means we are not investing in our environmental infrastructure,” Wilderness Society Director of Legislative Policy David Moulton said in a statement. 

The package likely represents the last significant burst of legislating before the election.

The House late Wednesday approved 10 amendments to the 2013 Transportation and Housing and Urban Development spending bill, before adjourning just before 11:15 p.m.

Still up for a vote on Thursday are proposals to cut $500 million from the bill, and prohibit the government from requiring GPS tracking devices in cars, among others.

A key Senate Republican says a bicameral deal is imminent on pending transportation funding legislation.