Defense giant Lockheed Martin is confident the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be ready for combat in time to meet the Pentagon's deployment deadlines. 

Outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood predicted that President Obama's choice to replace him will continue his campaigns to end distracted driving and increase bicycling and pedestrian options for commuters.

The administration said it wanted to “encourage” further testing of the newest technologies by providing guidance to states.

A top natural gas industry official said Thursday that major new federal climate policy isn’t needed to continue to fuel’s market expansion – and might be even be harmful.

“I don’t see a need for separate climate policy to continue the move we have already seen,” said Marty Durbin, the new CEO of America’s Natural Gas Alliance, a trade group that represents large independent gas producers.

Booming U.S. gas production has lowered prices and helped the fuel gain market share in the utility sector at the expense of coal, which emits much more carbon dioxide than gas when burned. The trend helped to reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions last year to their lowest level in almost two decades.

“You have got innovative technology developments that have allowed us to have this [gas] resource available to us. The market has said this is the right fuel to use, and because of that, we have now seen reductions in carbon emissions and many other emissions that didn’t require any overriding policy at the federal level,” Durbin said.

The number of people employed by U.S. airlines declined by 2.7 percent in March, according to statistics released on Thursday by the Department of Transportation (DOT).

The most recent figures available show that 380,325 people were employed by airlines in March 2013, compared to 390,761 in March of last year.

The number of employs was largely stagnant between March and February 2013, going from 380,159 in February to March's 380,325 figure. 

Images taken by the old machines had been heavily criticized as an invasion of privacy.

Outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Wednesday praised officials in Florida and Hawaii for passing laws to ban texting-while-driving.

LaHood has waged a vocal campaign against distracted driving during his tenure at the Department of Transportation (DOT), and noted that more than 40 states now have prohibitions against texting behind the wheel.

"I commend Gov. [Neil] Abercrombie [D] and the Hawaii legislature for taking an important stand against the danger of distracted driving," LaHood said in a statement.

"With Florida's new anti-texting law, we are one step closer toward our goal of encouraging all 50 states to pass distracted driving legislation.”

A Democratic member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is calling for Congress to hold a hearing on bridge safety after they return from recess next week.

The request, from Rep. Janice Hahn (D-Calif.), follows a pair of recent high-profile accidents involving bridge collapses.

Hahn said in a letter to House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) that the panel should make bridge safety a priority because many of other existing structures in the U.S. are presently at risk of collapse.   

"As you know, last week, a truck carrying an oversize load crashed into a section of the Interstate 5 bridge in Washington State – a bridge that was classified by the Department of Transportation as structurally obsolete – causing it to collapse," Hahn wrote in reference to an accident last week that resulted in cars falling into the Skagit River.

"We are lucky that there were not any fatalities," Hahn continued. "With over 70,000 bridges that have been classified as “structurally deficient” nation-wide, it is clear we have an infrastructure crisis in this country and it is only a matter of time before another bridge collapses and lives could be lost."

General Motors (GM) is shifting personnel is its Washington, D.C., lobbying office, the company announced on Thursday.

GM said it was appointing Victoria Barnes to be its new executive director of federal affairs.

Barnes had previously been serving as director of legislative and regulatory affairs and taxes at GM.