Long-term transportation funding likely to be delayed
With Congress riven by partisan politics and facing a truncated election-year schedule, the chances are slim that it will pass a long-awaited bill to fund the nation’s highways, mass transit and ports, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Wednesday.
LaHood’s gloomy forecast came two days before House Republicans are expected to begin circulating their five-year transportation blueprint, a $260 billion bill that may be introduced as early as next week.
In spanning five years, the House proposal already is at odds with a two-year Senate plan that cleared a committee last year. It will include far-reaching reforms to the federal transportation bureaucracy while transferring significant authority over spending decisions to the states.
“I believe we’ll probably have to wait until next year to get to a surface transportation bill because of the huge differences,” LaHood told a conference of transportation experts meeting in Washington. “Given the politics, the number of days that remain, the differences between what the Senate and the House are looking at, I think it’s very unlikely that we’ll have a surface transportation bill during this year.”
full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/long-term-transportation-funding-likely-to-be-delayed/2012/01/25/gIQAvbkeRQ_story.html
