U.S. Senate

The potential for a cap-and-trade climate bill to set aside significant amounts of money for reforming local land use and transportation planning is often touted by Democrats, environmental groups, and this particular Streetsblogger.

In a surprising one-two punch, Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan (ND) and Chris Dodd (CT) have let slip their plans to leave Congress at the end of this year.

As the Copenhagen climate talks reach a turning point, congressional negotiations over emissions cuts are taking a back seat to global debate. But some undeniably good news on the domestic front came late yesterday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) are no fans of dedicated federal spending on cleaner transportation. From bike and pedestrian safety to local transit funds, the duo has made a habit of attacking non-road projects as wasteful "pork."

The trouble with broad analysis pieces on campaign cash is that they often go for eye-popping numbers while obscuring uncomfortable political realities. For example, GreenWire reported this morning that the 27 senators who remain undecided on the chamber's pending climate bill took "more than $20 million ... over the past two decades from energy interests with a direct stake in pending legislation."

The senior Republicans on three of the Senate's four infrastructure-centric committees today signed onto a letter asking the leaders of Congress' upper chamber to call up a six-month extension of the 2005 transportation law.

The Senate's propensity for filibusters, delay, and fruitless attempts at bipartisan deal-making is earning it quite the reputation these days. And climate change legislation, with its big-ticket implications for transit and urban development in general, is becoming increasingly caught up in the Senate's peripatetic politics.

In a development that flew largely under the radar on Thursday, the Senate beat back an attempt by David Vitter (R-LA) and Bob Bennett (R-UT) to add a citizenship question to the 2010 U.S. Census, with the goal of no longer counting non-citizens as part of states' official populations.

The Senate environment committee approved its climate change bill today on an 11-1 vote, shrugging off a boycott by all of the panel's Republicans but missing out on the chance to consider amendments to the lengthy legislation.