Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Gas Tax

Behind the Transport Industry’s Lament About the Senate Climate Bill

By Elana Schor | May 17, 2010 | No Comments

While transport reform advocates hailed last week’s long-awaited Senate climate bill for directing an estimated $6 billion-plus towards local land use planning and green infrastructure, state DOTs and construction interests criticized the legislation — suggesting that the measure’s sponsors could face stiff resistance from the transportation industry’s mainstream despite making concessions to win over all […]

Specter of Gas Tax Lingers as Rendell, Villaraigosa Push Infrastructure Bank

By Elana Schor | May 13, 2010 | No Comments

Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), two of the nation’s best-known advocates for greater investment in the built environment, today joined several House Democrats in calling for federal action on a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB) — even as questions about the bank’s scope, and Congress’s resistance to raising sustained new […]

U.S. DOT Admits Status Quo Untenable, Vows to Cut Transport Emissions

By Elana Schor | Apr 22, 2010 | No Comments

In its second Earth Day release, the U.S. DOT today unveiled a 600-page analysis of transportation emissions mandated by Congress in the 2007 energy bill. In addition to weighing in on many potential tactics for limiting transport’s contribution to the changing climate, the document notably recommits the Obama administration to that goal at a time […]

Kerry on Senate Climate Bill: Federal Gas Tax Is Staying at 18.4 Cents

By Elana Schor | Apr 21, 2010 | No Comments

The several dozen transportation industry groups that raised questions about where the upcoming Senate climate change bill would send proceeds from its new "linked fee" on carbon fuels can stop worrying — because it looks like the legislation won’t contain any new tax on motor fuels. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) (Photo: Getty) As Sen. John […]

Former U.S. DOT Chief on Worst-Case Scenario: Four Years of Extensions

By Elana Schor | Apr 19, 2010 | No Comments

To a certain extent, hope springs eternal in federal transportation circles. Even as state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations operate under the latest in a series of extensions of the 2005 law that governs road, transit, and bike-ped spending, few are willing to envision a future in which new legislation doesn’t pass by next year. […]

The Gas Tax: A Trip Back in Legislative Time

By Elana Schor | Apr 15, 2010 | No Comments

As Tax Day prompts a rush of political rallies and media coverage, it’s worth looking back at the history of the federal levy that helps pay for transportation projects: the gas tax. The late Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) in 1982, when he battled his own party’s attempts to raise the gas tax. (Photo: TIME) Most […]

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