Free Republic

Nearly a dozen stakeholders representing local governments and the freight and commuter sectors on Feb. 7 urged a House transportation panel to identify a sustainable source of funding for an infrastructure bill. As the panel prepares to craft legislation, lawmakers agreed infrastructure policy should top their priorities this year. Yet, they continue to differ on a way forward for ensuring the sustainability of the dwindling Highway Trust Fund. The idea that former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to consider is increasing and indexing the fuel tax by about 10 cents. Doing so, LaHood argued, would...

U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao had been on the job only a few weeks when she took action on one of the region's most intractable problems and directed millions in federal transit dollars be withheld from the District, Maryland and Virginia until they create a safety agency to oversee D.C.'s subway, Metro. Chao was making good on a threat by her predecessor, Anthony Foxx, a move that surprised some local officials who had hoped that the jurisdictions had shown enough progress to stave off the action. It's too soon to say whether Chao's action is a sign she will continue...

Ben Sasse and the rest of the GOP elite claim Trump is a menace who must be stopped “on principle.” Sasse and others have criticized Trump for not disavowing racists quickly enough (even though Trump disavowed racists repeatedly). Sasse has a bigger problem – he supported a pedophile. Some suspect he used his position of authority to enable abuse. Ben Sasse was in charge of supervising underage boys, who were later abused by members of Congress. Ben Sasse was a tutor in the Congressional page program from 1996 to 1998. The Congressional page program brings underage boys to Congress to...

July 1, 2015 Mike Flynn has published about a million and a half words on politics and policy. Now, he's trying to put them into practice. Last month, Flynn, an editor for the conservative Breitbart News, announced his bid for the special election to replace former Rep. Aaron Schock in Illinois. The former columnist and founding editor of the Big Government blog decided to make his first run for political office after the scandal-tarred Schock's resignation, arguing that his role in the media prepared him for office. "My position is long-known, established, and out there, and I think that's something...

“I don’t want to say they’re unsafe, but they’re dangerous.” That was how President Obama’s former transportation secretary Ray LaHood described America’s roads and bridges in a pre-Thanksgiving interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes. The high-profile story left viewers with the distinct impression that America’s roads and bridges are crumbling, and politicians were to blame. First, let’s dispense with the notion that travel in America is a life-jeopardizing experience. According to the Federal Highway Administration’s own 2013 report, the number of structurally deficient and functionally obsolete bridges has decreased every year since 2000. This same report also shows that fatalities and...

In the fall of 2011 the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) submitted Freedom of Information requests to the Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service following an announcement that the administration was investigating homebuilders in an attempt to bolster union membership at the expense of housing sector jobs. “In a letter [from the Labor Department] cited by The [Wall Street] Journal,” wrote Crain’s Detroit at the time “homebuilders were asked to immediately turn over the names, addresses, Social Security numbers, pay rates and hours worked for all employees over the past two years. The letter from the Labor...

President Obama plans to nominate Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx to serve as transportation secretary, a White House official said Sunday. Foxx, who would succeed Ray LaHood, would be the first African American nominated to serve in the president’s second-term Cabinet. Obama, who has had several Latino, African American and female Cabinet members step down in recent months, has come under fire for not doing enough to ensure diversity among his top advisers. The White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made, said, “As mayor of one of America’s most vibrant cities,...

A bipartisan group of House members has called on the Department of Transportation to reverse regulatory guidance issued in June that limits the ability of supply trucks to service oil and gas fields. Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.) and 60 other members of the House argued in a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that the guidance will harm not just the oil and gas industry, but related industries that contribute to job growth. They also argue that the guidance reversed 50 years of established practice with little warning to the industry. "Such a change significantly restricts the operations of individuals...

China’s attempt at a high-speed rail network is fraught with corrupt officials, impossible costs, and deadly safety failures. But U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wishes America would follow it as a model. LaHood told The Cable last week: The Chinese are more successful [in building infrastructure] because in their country, only three people make the decision. In our country, 3,000 people do, 3 million. In a country where only three people make the decision, they can decide where to put their rail line, get the money, and do it. We don’t do it that way in America. His comments are...

It's bad enough to have a columnist at one of America's most prominent newspapers regularly singing the praises of Chinese authoritarianism. It's worse when high-ranking members of the American government do it. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood griped at the Aspen Ideas Festival about having to deal with political opposition, and yearned for the ease in which Beijing could impose solutions without having to deal with dissent: Echoing the laments of pundits like Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood argued Saturday that China outpaces the United States in building major transportation infrastructure like high-speed rail...

Obama Administration Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood has come out in favor of the Chicoms over Americans claiming that in China “only three people make the decision. In our country, 3,000 people do.” Hannah Sternberg of Regnery gives a great example of that Chinese 3 man success. Likewise, the famed high spec rail system in China has come under investigation for corruption, is not making money, and has repeated broken down. The same three people who make decisions decided to make the man in charge of the rail system disappear. Also, unlike the United States, the 3 men in China are...

(Cairo, Egypt)  --  Egypt is set to try 19 Americans, including the son of former Illinois Congressman Ray LaHood. Egyptian officials announced yesterday that Sam LaHood is among the 43 people to be tried for what prosecutors called using funds from their non-profit organizations to foment unrest in their country.

A Egyptian military team plans to visit the United States next week as Cairo's crackdown on pro-democracy organizations has called into question the future of U.S. aid to Egypt, American officials said on Friday. … The Egyptian visit comes after Egypt's military-led authorities pounced on non-governmental organizations, including several funded by the U.S. government, and slapped travel bans on six American staffers including a son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former congressman. Political analysts say the crackdown, along with questions over Egypt's emergency law and security forces' treatment of women protesters, has clouded the outlook for Egypt's fledgling...

Six Americans working for publicly funded U.S. organizations promoting democracy in Egypt have been barred from leaving the country, provoking angry demands in Washington that Cairo's new military rulers stop "endangering American lives". Among those hit by travel bans - one of those targeted called it "de facto detention" - is a son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, as well as other foreign staffers of the International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute, officials at the two organizations said.

Building First Segment Will Employ More Than 100,000 People over Next Five Years WASHINGTON - U.S.  Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today awarded a $928.6 million grant to the California High-Speed Rail Authority for initial construction of California High-Speed Rail. Construction will begin next year in Fresno, creating tens of thousands of jobs in California. “California’s population will grow by 60 percent over the next 40 years,” said Secretary LaHood. “Investing in a green, job creating high-speed rail network is less expensive and more practical than paying for all of the expansions to already congested highways and airports that would be necessary to accommodate the state’s...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, announced Thursday that Democratic and Republican leaders have "been able to broker a bipartisan compromise between the House and the Senate" to fully fund the Federal Aviation Administration.

After all the pleading and partisan accusations over funding the Federal Aviation Administration, Democratic lawmakers and Obama officials found the answer to ending a two-week shutdown of the agency literally right under their noses. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is sending a letter Thursday, saying a bill that the GOP-led House passed extending the FAA's operating authority through mid-September gives him the power to waive a provision Democrats opposed that cuts $16.5 million in air service subsides to rural communities.

Continuing a campaign initiated by Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) addressed the Telematics Detroit 2011 conference with harsh words on the growing trend to integrate infotainment technology into cars. David Strickland told those assembled, “I’m just putting everyone on notice. A car is not a mobile device. I’m not in the business of helping people tweet better. I’m not in the business of helping people post on Facebook better.” That’s not to say that the NHTSA and DOT are opposed to all telematics applications. In fact, the agencies support systems...

Government Motors has become yet another mouthpiece for the Obama administration. General Motors Co. CEO Dan Akerson told the Detroit News Saturday that he wants a $1 per gallon hike in the gas tax. Consumers already facing nearly $4 a gallon prices at the pump aren’t going to be pleased to see that figure jump overnight to $5, but the left and its crony capitalist allies don’t care what the public thinks. Mr. Akerson wants to use the power of government to make buying a Chevy Volt, GM’s entry into the electric car market, more economically attractive. Such marketplace intervention...

A study released earlier this month by the Cascade Policy Institute questioned whether pricey mass transit options in Portland, Oregon are really being used by the public. The city has been a leader in securing funding for various forms of passenger rail and trolley systems. The Obama administration, for example, pledged $745 million in federal gas tax dollars to pay for the construction of a $1.5 billion, 7.3 mile light rail project connecting Portland to Milwaukie. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has singled out the city’s priorities as for praise. “By adding innovative transit opportunities, Portland has become a model livable...