Transportation Bill

Maryland's MARC commuter trains, which have always operated Monday through Friday, will begin offering weekend service between Baltimore and Washington on the Penn Line in coming months. The expansion - put on hold in 2008 when the recession hit - is possible as the result of the new transportation revenue law that raises the state's gas tax, officials said. The governor signed the bill Thursday. The news was welcomed by Baltimore officials, who said it would offer city residents a less expensive means than Amtrak of traveling to Washington for weekend events while also encouraging D.C. residents to travel to Charm City.

Maryland's MARC commuter trains, which have always operated Monday through Friday, will begin offering weekend service between Baltimore and Washington on the Penn Line in coming months. The expansion - put on hold in 2008 when the recession hit - is possible as the result of the new transportation revenue law that raises the state's gas tax, officials said. The governor signed the bill Thursday. The news was welcomed by Baltimore officials, who said it would offer city residents a less expensive means than Amtrak of traveling to Washington for weekend events while also encouraging D.C. residents to travel to Charm City.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said Friday that he expects Gov. Martin O'Malley to introduce a transportation revenue bill of his own -- a move that would raise the likelihood Marylanders will be paying higher taxes on gasoline later this year. Commenting after the Senate wound up its debate on the death penalty for the day, Miller predicted O'Malley would have his bill in Monday -- the last day a bill can be introduced without a supermajority vote. Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for O'Malley, declined to confirm Miller's statement, saying the governor's office had nothing to announce.

Hours before the House was scheduled to debate a proposed increase in gas taxes supported by Gov. Martin O'Malley, Republicans lawmakers excoriated the plan Wednesday as a $2 billion drain on taxpayers' wallets over the next six years. House Republicans called a news conference to promise to fight the plan to raise revenue for roads, bridges, mass transit and other transportation needs. The plan would raise taxes on gas by 3.8 cents a gallon on July 1 and add increments in subsequent years.  By mid-2016, the Republicans said, the increase could reach 44.1 cents compared with the 23.5 cents Maryland motorists have paid since 1992, when the tax was last raised.

The House of Representatives has produced a seriously flawed transportation bill that cannot compare with the forward-looking bill approved this summer by the Senate. Unless House members in conference this weekend accept aspects of the Senate's superior version, this bill seems headed for a certain presidential veto.Both bills offer the most sweeping changes in transportation funding in 35 years. But with the interstate highway system nearing completion, now is the time for a new approach in which the emphasis shifts to repairing existing roads and promoting mass transit alternatives.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said aloud what many Americans must be thinking these days - that at least some Republicans in Congress would like to see the U.S. economy worsen in order to boost their chances of success in the November election. The evidence? The GOP's continued resistance to approving a multiyear transportation authorization bill. Senator Reid told The Hill that he's heard House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is leading the charge to delay the Senate bill - and the tens of thousands of jobs it would create.

WASHINGTON -- An attempt by the Senate to pass a landmark transportation bill dissolved early today as an acrimonious fight broke out over state shares of billions of dollars in federal aid for highways and mass transit systems.The failure to settle on a compromise allocation plan that would have permitted Senate passage of the bill clearly angered the measure's principal author, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y."Those who think they will get more by being difficult may get nothing. Nothing," Mr. Moynihan said.

WASHINGTON -- Most newspaper and TV coverage of the $217 billion transportation measure making its way through Congress suggests it's laced with political pork, it's a failure of the Republican revolution, it's a "fleecing of America."It is arguably all those things.But this bill, now awaiting a Senate-House conference to work out final details, is also the first reauthorization, since its birth in 1991, of ISTEA -- the landmark Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act.What the media's missed, with rare exceptions, is the fresh triumph, over strong opposition, of the basic ISTEA concept.

WASHINGTON -- A $105 billion transportation bill to give states unprecedented freedom to decide how to spend federal highway money was sent to the Senate floor yesterday.The bill includes provisions that would affect most U.S. motorists and commuters, including continuing restrictions on double- and triple-trailer trucks, continuing the 65-mph speed limit for some roads and strengthening emphasis on mass transit.Overall, the five-year bill would shift the highway program's emphasis from construction to maintenance, recognizing that a 30-year era of massive road building is ending with the imminent completion of the interstate system.

WASHINGTON -- A House subcommittee approved yesterday a new five-year transportation bill that would offer Maryland more highway money than competing Senate and Bush administration measures and would earmark $60 million over the next five years for light rail.The transportation bill approved by the House Public Works Surface Transportation Subcommittee would authorize the state $1.7 billion over five years, compared with $1.6 billion under a Senate-passed bill and the $1.4 billion under the administration-backed proposal.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said Friday that he expects Gov. Martin O'Malley to introduce a transportation revenue bill of his own -- a move that would raise the likelihood Marylanders will be paying higher taxes on gasoline later this year. Commenting after the Senate wound up its debate on the death penalty for the day, Miller predicted O'Malley would have his bill in Monday -- the last day a bill can be introduced without a supermajority vote. Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for O'Malley, declined to confirm Miller's statement, saying the governor's office had nothing to announce.

Taking the first step in grappling with what could become one of the most difficult issues of the 2013 General Assembly, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller introduced a bill Monday night that would raise hundreds of millions of dollars for transportation projects and shift the more of the burden of financing transit projects to Baltimore and the urban counties. Miller's proposed legislation is expected to be the starting point for discussions with Gov. Martin O'Malley, who has advocated tax increases to pay for transportation but has not submitted a plan this year.

A $100 billion transportation bill President Barack Obama signed into law Friday will put 10,000 people in Maryland to work on state bridges and roads and represents "what can actually be accomplished if Congress comes together," Gov.Martin O'Malley said in an interview. O'Malley attended the signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Friday along with a bipartisan group of lawmakers who worked on the bill, including House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica, a Florida Republican, and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat who heads the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said aloud what many Americans must be thinking these days - that at least some Republicans in Congress would like to see the U.S. economy worsen in order to boost their chances of success in the November election. The evidence? The GOP's continued resistance to approving a multiyear transportation authorization bill. Senator Reid told The Hill that he's heard House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is leading the charge to delay the Senate bill - and the tens of thousands of jobs it would create.

When U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican, recently called the House transportation bill the worst such measure he's seen in 35 years of public service, he was being kind. Surely, it's among the worst, most cynically partisan bills to ever threaten U.S. highway and transit infrastructure in all of recorded history. That's because the serious business of building and maintaining roads, bridges, rail systems and other vital transportation assets is usually among the most bipartisan of Congressional actions.

Even engineers can make a mistake. Last month, the American Society of Civil Engineers released a study of U.S. transportation needs and found that the country's failure to invest sufficiently in roads, bridges, rail and other infrastructure is going to reduce personal income by $930 billion by 2020 but might recover slightly by 2040. Turns out, that was wildly inaccurate. After returning to the drawing board and scrutinizing the issue more closely, the engineers came out with a more complete accounting of the consequences of the deteriorating network.

WASHINGTON -- Facing a tumultuous fall term that could have the government perched for months on the brink of shutting down, the Senate raced through its summer business yesterday hoping to begin a three-week recess after today.The senators moved last night toward approval of a $243 billion ** spending bill to finance the Pentagon next year. The bill, which is expected to pass this morning, represents a $1 billion increase over last year's defense spending and a $6.4 billion boost over what President Clinton had requested.

SO MUCH FOR austerity, that clarion call of Republican fiscal conservatives in Congress. Pork is back.Is it ever! Just look at the 1,600 "high-priority" projects included in a monstrous transportation bill about to clear the House of Representatives.This is pure, 100-percent lard that will cost taxpayers a staggering $18 billion over the next six years.Nearly every congressional district gets its share of goodies -- about four projects per member. Representatives who oppose such blatant taxpayer giveaways, such as Delaware's lone House member, Republican Michael N. Castle, wind up with nothing.

President Barack Obama's call for spending an additional $50 billion on transportation was quickly dismissed by Republicans as more of the same old economic stimulus. They could not be more wrong. If there was a valid criticism to be made of the first stimulus package, it was that not enough was invested in the nation's infrastructure needs. What Mr. Obama is proposing is not some wild-eyed liberal spending scheme but the kind of basic investment that Washington should be making whether today's unemployment is 9.8 percent or 2.8 percent.

CHICAGO - President Bush signed the $286.5 billion transportation bill yesterday, saying it would ease traffic congestion throughout the United States, create hundreds of thousands of jobs and impose stricter vehicular safety standards that will save lives. But critics said the legislation was stuffed with unnecessary and expensive projects that benefited only members of Congress seeking hometown support. Maryland will receive $2.9 billion in highway funding and more than $900 million in designated mass transit funding.