[12.4.11] Taxpayer.net

The Precarious State of the Highway Trust Fund (Cascadia Prospectus)

1) The new bills concerning highways were passed with both majority in the House (298-121) and in the Senate (70-30).

2) The "obligation limitation for the highway program" is about $2 billion less than this year's. (This is for FY 2012). However, "an additional $1.66 billion is appropriated for highway-relared 'emergency relief.'"

3) California is planning to have a high-speed rail/bullet train built, but there was no mention of this in the budget.

4) Some people are concerned that this bill "will deplete almost all resources from the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) by the end of fiscal year 2012."

5) Sometime in December the "American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act" will be announced." This bill "would authorize expanded offshore gas and oil exploration and dedicate royalties from such exploration to "infrastructure repair and improvement" focused on roads and bridges."

I'm wondering: how are the bills in the Senate and House numbered? Are the numbers reused? The above bill is HR 7. Do the numbers on the bill skip around?




Despite earmark ban, lawmakers try to give money to hundreds of pet projects (Washington Post)

1) There is a moratorium  ("delay or suspension of an activity or a law") announced in both the Senate (last February) and the House (last November) on earmarks.

2) Representative Doris Matsui (from CA) does not support the banning of earmarks since that gives "all the power to the administration."

3) Earmark spending "nearly tripled over a 15-year period, to $31.9 billion in 2010, the year before the ban."

4) I thought this was kind of funny: "Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio), who previously secured more than $2 million in earmarks for a 'Corrosion Engineering Education Initiative' at the University of Akron, added $33 million to the authorization bill this year for 'Corrosion Protection Projects.'"

5) "After 2008, lawmakers had to disclose when they were seeking money for pet projects in their districts, providing a description of the project and the dollar amount. They also had to file paperwork certifying that neither they nor their spouses would benefit financially from the earmark."