Ray LaHood

As Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood tangled with a senior GOP senator today over the White House's $500 million-plus request for its inter-agency office of sustainable communities -- a new project aimed at channeling federal energy towards local transit-oriented and smart growth plans -- an influential Democrat joined her fellow senator in raising questions about diverting highway money to the effort.

When Cabinet secretaries appear in front of Congress' appropriations committees, which control the annual budgets for each federal agency, the proceedings tend to be dry affairs dominated by local concerns and arcane fiscal debates.

When a member of Congress earmarks transportation money for a local project, the funding isn't always spent in a timely manner. The Bush administration's final budget proposed to cancel road earmarks that had sat largely unspent for 10 years, a move that would have freed up $626 million, according to Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI).

The Obama administration today offered a one-page sample proposal to crack down on texting behind the wheel, aimed at helping guide states through the process of crafting their own distracted driving legislation.

As transportation reformers continue to wait for the Senate to join the House in offering a new federal transportation bill, Senate environment committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will hold a town hall meeting at the headquarters of L.A.'s Metro transit authority on Friday, February 19. 

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said today that he sees "very bright" prospects for congressional approval of the Obama administration's $4 billion National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund, the new iteration of the long-discussed National Infrastructure Bank proposal.

Transportation reformers and members of Congress have long clamored for changes to the federal government's major transit grant program, otherwise known as "New Starts," and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood answered today with an announcement of sweeping changes in the works.

The annual powwow of thousands of transportation workers, planners, and wonks that's known as the Transportation Research Board (TRB) conference kicked off in the capital yesterday with a candid admission from some senior U.S. DOT officials: reorienting American transport planning to accommodate the overlap with housing and environmental sustainability is proving pretty difficult.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood visited Jon Stewart on The Daily Show last night to talk about his department's role in the stimulus debate, infrastructure modernization, and development of a U.S. high-speed rail system. Check out the video above (and let us know what you thought in the comments).