Update from National League of Cities:
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has formally announced a series of field hearings on transportation authorization that will begin February 14 in West Virginia. The purpose of the hearings is to gather input for the next effort to reauthorize federal transportation programs, which expired on September 2009. The current short term extension expires March 4. NLC is coordinating with our local organization colleagues to ensure good local representation on these panels. If you have members testifying who need any background information, we’re happy to provide it to them. Please let me know if you do learn of local officials who will be on the panels.
Chairman Mica is predicting a smaller bill than the current legislation that will take into account actual revenues from the federal Highway Trust Fund, which has not met obligations in current law. With decreasing gas tax revenues and no chance of a gas tax increase, Mica and the new Committee members will be pushing for less funding with local programs at risk, in particular!
Here is the current committee listing for the House: http://republicans.transportation.house.gov/singlepages.aspx/763
From the Committee press release:
Field hearings begin February 14, 2011 in West Virginia, home state of the Committee’s Ranking Democrat Member Nick J. Rahall. At least a dozen other sessions across numerous states are currently planned for February 17-25, including a joint House-Senate hearing in Los Angeles in cooperation with Senator Barbara Boxer, Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. (Further details regarding meetings will be announced at a later date.)
The Committee will travel to the following communities to gather information for the transportation reauthorization bill:
Beckley, West Virginia; Charleston, West Virginia; the Philadelphia Metropolitan area; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Rochester, New York; Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; the Chicago Metropolitan area; Vancouver, Washington; Fresno, California; Los Angeles; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Jonesboro, Arkansas; the Memphis Metropolitan area.
http://republicans.transportation.house.gov/news/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=1060
