U.S. DOT

I had the chance to listen in yesterday to top staffers from USDOT explain their collaboration with HUD and the EPA -- the "Partnership for Livable Communities" that was first unveiled in March and touted again by President Obama in July. Three officials, including one of Ray LaHood's top deputies, Beth Osborne, outlined their plans via conference call to several hundred people from all parts of the country.

The U.S. DOT announced today that 43 local transit agencies from more than two dozen states would share the $100 million in competitive clean-transport grants included in this winter's $787 billion economic stimulus law.

While it pushes for an 18-month delay in the next federal infrastructure bill, the Obama administration has proposed a data collection effort that would help states and localities begin tracking ridership and usage of transit, roads, buses, and the like -- a small put pivotal step towards enacting national performance standards for transportation.

The final fuel-efficiency rule released by the Obama administration this morning includes what some lobbyists have nicknamed "the German provision," giving automakers that sell less than 400,000 vehicles in the U.S. an exemption for 25 percent of their fleet.

One thing the government's CARS program -- a.k.a. "cash for clunkers" -- has clearly stimulated is commentary. For a policy involving a shade under $3 billion in federal spending, it has enjoyed no shortage of media coverage.

Washington's normally frenetic pace slows down in August, when humid weather and the absence of Congress combine to give the capital some recharging time.

The Obama administration plans to close the door on the politically popular and environmentally slipshod auto trade-in program known as "cash for clunkers," according to a report this afternoon in the Wall Street Journal:

Transportation spending under the economic stimulus law created close to 15,000 jobs in June, or three times as many as were created in May, according to estimates released today by the U.S. DOT.

The disjointed state of "New Starts," the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) program to fund new rail and bus lines, is well-known on the Hill -- in fact, House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) recently quipped that it ought to be renamed "small starts, low starts, and no starts."