New York TImes
June 11, 2009, Josh Vorhees

Transportation advocates, environmentalists and like-minded lawmakers see the upcoming highway and transit reauthorization bill as a vehicle to deliver Washington's promise to overhaul the nation's transportation system, complete with a focus on curbing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing fuel consumption. But with little visible progress on that front, they are looking elsewhere -- particularly the House Democrats' energy and climate change bill -- for more immediate victories to set the stage for reform. "To believe that the entire Congress is going to finish this reauthorization bill by September 30, when there isn't even a bill, is truly a triumph of hope over experience," said Slade Gorton, a former Republican senator from Washington and a co-chair of the bipartisan National Transportation Policy Project, one of several policy groups urging massive reform in the sector. "Can things be done in the interim? My answer to that question is yes." The transportation spending bill has been on the horizon for lawmakers since Congress approved its current incarnation in August 2005, two years and 12 extensions after its predecessor had been scheduled to expire. That bill, which expires at the end of September, provided $286 billion for the nation's roads, rails and transit -- an amount lawmakers now concede was a far cry from what was needed to keep pace with the nation's needs. The upcoming measure will provide the bulk of federal transportation spending for the next six years and, as a result, will replace the current law as the de facto national transportation policy. Roughly a third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are generated by transportation, leading many environmentalists and a growing number of lawmakers to argue that the reauthorization should be viewed through the lens of climate change....

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/06/11/11greenwire-with-highway-bill-on-the-distant-horizon-reform-2123.html?emc=eta1&pagewanted=all