Transportation Committee Sets Agenda

1/21/2009 Ari Natter Associate Editor

Infrastructure investment, transportation safety and security, and global climate change will be among the top priorities of the powerful House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the 111th Congress, its chair said last week.

"There is almost as much for us to do as we did in the last Congress because of bills we passed but the Senate didn't act on," Rep. James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., said during a Committee meeting Jan. 15.

Oberstar said the committee will also be consumed with Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization legislation, and "the big bill" - surface transportation reauthorization legislation that could spend as much as $500 billion.
Rep. Peter A. DeFazio, D-Ore., the chair of the highways and transit subcommittee, said the bill, in addition to providing "adequate funding" would focus on "making the whole system more truly intermodal."

The committee plans to hold hearings on "Energy Reduction and Environmental Sustainability in Surface Transportation" Jan. 27 as well as a hearing on freight and passenger rail for Jan. 28.

From Traffic World On-Line.