Jeff Berman, Group News Editor -- Logistics Management, 5/11/2009
WASHINGTON—With the highway re-authorization bill—Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU)—set to expire at the end of September, various freight transportation industry stakeholders are keeping an eye on the next version of the bill.
And earlier today a report from BNA, a publisher of legislative, regulatory, and economic news publisher, provided a look at some of the main takeaways of a new version of the bill from James L. Oberstar, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Some of the highlights of the bill, which many industry observers have said could require more than $500 billion (compared to the current one of $286 billion), are listed below:
- a call for a change in “transit equity” that would differ from the current set-up in which the federal government pays for 80 percent of highway projects and 50 percent of transit projects, which Oberstar said would “level decision-making factors between highway and transit choices/projects.”;
- a consolidation of the Department of Transportation’s 108 programs into four major programs—critical asset preservation, highway safety improvement, surface transportation program, and congestion mitigation and air quality improvement; and
- create a new undersecretary or assistant secretary for intermodalism that would meet monthly with all modal administrators, among others.
Read the rest of the article at logisticsmgmt.com here.
