Your weekly source of fresh takes on news affecting America's passengers. See also the NARP Blog.
October 11, 1991
The House approved the fiscal 1991 transportation appropriations conference bill, 374-49, on October 9. The Senate is expected to approve it on October 16. The House Public Works Transportation Subcommittee yesterday released a new version of H.R.2950, the surface transportation bill. The full Committee will consider it on October 8, then it goes to Ways and Means for discussion of the gas-tax ex...
October 4, 1991
For the federal government, fiscal 1992 began October 1, but transportation programs technically remain unfunded, though there is a continuing resolution to fund programs at their 1991 levels through October 29. House Public Works leaders are now struggling with how to allocate highway dollars by state, the same problem that threatened the Senate bill in June. House leaders hope to have a bill on...
September 27, 1991
The present highway and transit authorization comes to an end on September 30. Of course, it will be impossible to finish new legislation by then -- it may take until Thanksgiving. Everything depends on the House, because the Senate passed its bill in mid-June. However, House Public Works staff are not worried about the expiration of the current program, saying there is "enough money in the pipeli...
September 20, 1991
Finally, there is some news to report on H.R.2950, the House surface transportation bill. In the colorful words of the Washington Post, on September 18 Speaker Foley (D.-Wash.) performed "last rites on a seven-week-old corpse" by announcing that the controversial five-cent gas tax increase would be taken out of the bill and the bill itself would be rewritten. However, there is not likely to be maj...
September 13, 1991
Congress returned on September 11. Everyone wants to know what is happening with H.R.2950, the House surface transportation bill, but all that can be said is that, officially, it is in limbo while House leadership continue to discuss what is to be done with it. The Senate 1992 DOT appropriations bill was approved yesterday at both the subcommittee and committee levels. The Amtrak numbers compare...