However, a new report from the Government Accountability Office shows that Christie vastly exaggerated how much of the project would be paid for by New Jersey:

The report by the Government Accountability Office, to be released this week, found that while Mr. Christie said that state transportation officials had revised cost estimates for the tunnel to at least $11 billion and potentially more than $14 billion, the range of estimates had in fact remained unchanged in the two years before he announced in 2010 that he was shutting down the project. And state transportation officials, the report says, had said the cost would be no more than $10 billion.

Mr. Christie also misstated New Jersey’s share of the costs: he said the state would pay 70 percent of the project; the report found that New Jersey was paying 14.4 percent. And while the governor said that an agreement with the federal government would require the state to pay all cost overruns, the report found that there was no final agreement, and that the federal government had made several offers to share those costs.

After canceling the project, Christie steered money earmarked for the tunnel into the Garden State’s transportation trust fund, rather than fixing the fund’s obviously broken revenue stream (which might have included raising the gasoline tax). “[The tunnel] was critical to the future of New Jersey’s economy and it took years to plan, but Gov. Christie wiped it out with a campaign of public deception,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in a statement. “The future of New Jersey’s commuters was sacrificed for the short term political needs of the Governor.”

At the moment, both Amtrak and New Jersey transit trains share a pair of 100 year old tracks under the Hudson River, which are operating at capacity. Demand for mass transit between New York and New Jersey is expected to increase by nearly 40 percent by 2030. But instead of financing this important project, Christie used it for his political advantage, and then turned around to throw money at a boondoggle of a mall project.

From World War II until just a few years ago, the number of miles driven annually on America’s roads steadily increased. Then, at the turn of the century, something changed: Americans began driving less. By 2011, the average American was driving 6 percent fewer miles per year than in 2004.

The trend away from driving has been led by young people. From 2001 to 2009, the average annual number of vehicle miles traveled by young people (16 to 34-year-olds) decreased from 10,300 miles to 7,900 miles per capita — a drop of 23 percent.

“America’s transportation preferences appear to be changing. Our elected officials need to make transportation decisions based on the real needs of Americans in the 21st century,” said Phineas Baxandall, Senior Transportation Analyst for U.S.PIRG Education Fund. However, it’s quite clear that House Republicans in Congress aren’t quite caught up to speed.

The House GOP has been squabbling for months over a bill to reauthorize the nation’s transportation funding, with more conservative members of the caucus wanting to gut funding and send it back to the states to deal with. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), in the transportation bill that he proposed, called for ending the government’s dedicated stream of funding for mass transit, and instead implementing a cockamamie scheme that the Congressional Budget Office said would cover just five percent of mass transit needs.

The New York Times called the GOP’s plan “uniquely terrible,” and as the research organization PolicyLink found, it would have a disproportionately negative impact on minorities, who depend upon mass transit in greater numbers. The Senate, meanwhile, has had none of these problems, passing a bipartisan transportation bill that the House GOP refuses to take up.

House Republicans are attempting a similar strategy now, just two days before the government’s spending authority for transportation expires. The Senate passed a bipartisan transportation bill last week, while House Republican leadership has struggled to get its conservative flank on board with any of its proposals.

Democrats have indeed blocked versions of the House’s disastrous transportation bill in an effort to get the bipartisan Senate bill, which garnered 22 Republican votes, passed through the House. But Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has ignored the Senate bill and has been unable to line up Republicans behind any of his proposals. Now, his spokesperson is attempting to blame Democrats for the GOP leadership’s inability to pass an extension, The Hill reports:

A spokesman for Boehner said Wednesday that the GOP had only moved to consideration of a 60-day extension because Democrats had said they would support it. The spokesman, Michael Steel, said that the fate of the extension of transportation funding is now “up to Democratic leadership.”

“It’s their choice as to whether to work in a bipartisan fashion or play political games with our country’s economy,” Steel said in a statement.

At least one Republican recognizes how ridiculous the GOP’s attempts to blame Democrats are. Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH) told reporters Wednesday that the GOP’s strategy was to “pray the Senate doesn’t call our bluff.”

The Senate’s two-year package would save an estimated 1.9 million jobs and create as many as 1 million more, according to the bill’s bipartisan sponsors. In the event of a shutdown, the Highway Trust Fund, which funds infrastructure projects, would lose $110 million a day in gas tax revenues, and states would be forced to delay entire transportation projects. Instead of passing that bill, though, House Republicans are planning to pass a short-term extension before skipping town for recess, leaving the Senate to clean up their mess.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

Their ads, focused on Kentucky and Ohio, included children singing “America’s bridges falling down, all around the country,” to the tune of the song “London Bridge is Falling Down.” A narrator warned:

The average age of a U.S. bridge is 45 years, dangerously close to the life span of 50 years. More than a quarter of our bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Because of tight budgets, bridge maintenance is in jeopardy. and if Republican leaders in Congress have their way those budgets will get cut even more. Text “Bridge” to 69866 and let Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell know we need a real highway bill to save our bridges and our lives.

This got the attention of McConnell’s staff, who posted a refutation on his campaign website. McConnell professed his support for the highway bill and slammed Laborers for its support of Democratic candidates and the “radical” Occupy movement.

“Contrary to the assertion in the ads,” McConnell’s staff claimed, “Senator McConnell has been working to pass the highway bill in the U.S. Senate, which is currently slated for a vote on final passage next week.” A McConnell spokesman also told a Louisville, Kentucky radio station that the minority leader was working with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to pass the highway bill.

Just before the vote, McConnell took to the senate floor and praised the lead sponsors, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK) for their bipartisan effort. “They have worked together in a collegial way to bring us to this point on the highway bill,” he raved.

Moments later, McConnell joined 21 other Republicans — and no Democrats — in voting against the bill. The House is expected to take up a similar version in April, rather than the far inferior House Republican version.

McConnell’s office did not respond to a request for comment on why he voted against a bill he’d pledged to support and no explanations were apparent on his senate or campaign websites. But it would certainly appear that the Republican leader owes the Laborers an apology.

Last night the House of Representatives passed part of the behemoth transportation bill it is considering over the next month on a 237-187 vote.  This section consisted solely of earmarks to Big Oil including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opening Florida coasts to offshore drilling, a plan to develop oil shale (which isn’t even commercially viable), and building the Keystone XL pipeline.  A Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that the drilling proposals together generate only approximately $2 billion, far less than the $50 billion funding gap needed for transportation projects over the coming years.

Even if the drilling could pay for the costs, linking oil and gas development to long-term highway funding is just bad public policy, as Ryan Alexander of the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense has explained:

Paying for a couple of years of transportation funding with expected revenues from an increase in oil and gas drilling that will likely take many years to get rolling is not a responsible budget approach… It’s like buying the Ferrari tomorrow because you are sure a raise is coming sometime in the future.”

Originally the transportation bill (H.R. 7, American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012) was one large bill that included transportation funding, drilling, and changes to federal pensions.  However, Republicans realized that they would not have the votes for the bill, and so split it into three bills to be voted on separately that will then be spliced back together and sent to the Senate.  This was an unusual procedural move designed to shield Republicans from having to take tough votes that won’t be popular with their constituents but also force the bill through.

What is most galling is that none of these bills alone or combined would be able to pay for the costs of transportation generated by this bill.  Traditionally, improvements to roads, bridges, and public transportation are funded by the federal gasoline tax, but GOP leaders in the House are taking the unprecedented step to tie funding to an unnecessary and ineffective increase in fossil fuel production.  Since it doesn’t even begin to fund our highways, the bill can be considered nothing more than a series of earmarks for Big Oil.

The proposal to fund oil shale from Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) is a particularly nasty earmark.  The Congressional Budget Office found the bill would generate no revenue over 10 years and in the short term would cost money to implement the leasing program.  The Checks and Balance Project detailed this “boondoogle” in an online ad.

Last night’s vote saw some crossing of party lines, particularly 11 Florida Republicans angered by proposals to drill off of the state’s coasts who voted no on the bill’s passage.

The House of Representatives is considering a behemoth surface transportation bill this week, designed to fund the roads, highways, and bridges that connect our country.  It has nothing to do with the public lands that belong to all of us, but that didn’t stop three Republicans from Arizona from filing an amendment to the bill that would override Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s January decision to protect 1 million acres around Grand Canyon National Park from new uranium mining requests.

Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) penned the amendment:

SEC. __ . TERMINATION OF PUBLIC LAND ORDER 7787.

Public Land Order 7787 (77 Fed. Reg. 2563) and the withdrawal of lands by that Public Land Order shall have no force or effect, and the provisions of the land use plans applicable to such lands immediately before the issuance of such Public Land Order shall remain in effect.

If this sounds familiar, it is because this trio of lawmakers has tried three times in the last two years to undo new protections for one of our nation’s great places.  Here is a list of their other attempts to do the National Mining Association’s bidding:

– They added roll back language in the text of last year’s budget bill (which did not pass) where it was dubbed “the Flake earmark for the mining industry.”

– In October, Franks introduced the Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act of 2011, an attempt to halt the mineral withdrawal.

– Franks introduced legislation in the last Congress to stop the mineral withdrawal.

As ThinkProgress has outlined before, the Grand Canyon is incredibly important to the economy of Arizona.  Tourists spending money in and around the Grand Canyon create jobs. Headwaters Economics found that Grand Canyon National Park supported over 6,000 jobs in 2009 and those tourists spent more than $400 million.

In addition, mining for uranium around the canyon poses risks to drinking water for 25 million people reliant on the Colorado River, as seen in the legacy of old, abandoned, and hazardous mines.     

It remains to be seen whether Congressional rules will allow the amendment to be considered.  But House Republicans have made their position clear—despite the fact that the battle over the Grand Canyon has been fought, and these three Congressmen lost, they will keep fighting another day.  Franks recently stated to E&E News that “anything that we can do to promote the legislation we will.”

Then, yesterday, three Republican senators ignored Inhofe and Boxer’s calls to keep the bill free from controversy and attempted to attach an amendment mandating the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which Democrats warned could “kill the bill.” Now, Sen. Rand Paul (R) has put a hold on the bill until leadership promises him a vote on an amendment that would suspend foreign aid to Egypt, Politico reports:

Paul wants to offer an amendment to the Senate transportation bill that would cut off aid to Egypt if nongovernmental employees working with the U.S. government are detained or held in the country, as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s son, Sam, currently is. And unless the senator decides to offer consent to move forward to the transportation bill, the Senate would be stuck in a 30-hour holding pattern.

“We’re not going to grant back our 30 hours unless we get a discussion on Egypt. We’re not asking for a lot of time; we just want a discussion and a vote on whether or not we should continue sending money to Egypt,” Paul told POLITICO.

Paul said he is taking action now because he fears his amendment won’t be allowed if he waits until debate on the transportation bill begins.

Noting the urgency of the transportation bill, Boxer and Inhofe agreed not to attach amendments or provisions that could be controversial. It contains no taxes and none of the other traditionally controversial measures included in such bills.

“2.8 million jobs hang in the balance” of the bill’s passage before the current transportation package expires, Boxer told Politico. “And we have obstruction from our friends on the Republican side.”

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has publicly raised objection to the measure, arguing that it will ultimately “kill the bill.” Passage of the highway bill is crucial, as the Highway Trust Fund faces insolvency in 2013, and the bill consists of much needed reforms that will ensure “current resources are used effectively so that Congress can continue investing in the Highway Trust Fund without adding to the federal deficit.”

Before taking the bill to the floor, both sides agreed not to attach controversial amendments:

The Senate’s $109 billion bill is a two-year bipartisan proposal that on Thursday survived a test vote of 85-11 on a measure that limits debate to 30 hours and prevents a filibuster of the bill.

The Senate bill also has the support of the Obama Administration.

In an effort to build bipartisan backing, from the start of their deliberations last year, the bill’s sponsors, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), agreed not to include anything controversial in the measure.

The bill contains no new taxes, no changes to rail programs, and does not address truck weights or lengths, although it would mandate electronic onboard recorders for trucks.

The Senate bill is one of two transportation bills moving through Congress, but the House is also working on a version that is riddled with ill-effects for low- and middle-income Americans, making the Senate version the best option under consideration. The Keystone amendment, which would authorize construction on all but the most sensitive Nebraska portion of the pipeline, would jeopardize its passage.

Senate leaders are still trying to decide which amendments will get a vote, but if the Keystone XL pipeline reaches the Senate floor, the measure will require 60 votes for approval. At present, there are 47 Republicans in the Senate, although some Democrats have voiced support for the massive oil pipeline project in the past. Grassroots activists are mobilizing in opposition to the Republican Keystone push.

– Fatima Najiy

Cuts to mass transit fall hard on low-income people who count on public transportation to get to work, go to school, and go about their lives. And they fall hardest on low-income minorities, who, as the research organization PolicyLink noted, as disproportionately likely to not own an automobile:

As housing and jobs have moved farther apart, the distance has created employment barriers for anyone without unlimited ability to drive. Nineteen percent of African Americans and 13.7 percent of Latinos lack access to automobiles, compared with 4.6 percent of whites. Poverty complicates the problem: 33 percent of poor African Americans and 25 percent of poor Latinos lack automobile access, compared with 12.1 percent of poor whites. Cars owned by low-income people tend to be older, less reliable, and less fuel-efficient. This makes commuting to work unpredictable and more expensive, at best.

“Communities of color, low-income Americans and people with disabilities will be disproportionately impacted since they are the most transit dependent communities and negotiate their daily lives on mass transportation to reach employment, health care, and educational centers,” said the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “These funding provisions will impact the millions of Americans who rely on public transit systems to get to work, to school, or to the doctor,” agreed the American Transit Association.

In addition to shortchanging transit and those who depend on it, the bill would also open up nearly all of America’s coastal waters to oil drilling. “It is really just one more attempt to promote the Republicans’ drill-now-drill-everywhere agenda and the interests of their industry patrons,” the Times editorialized.

In the end, neither the House GOP’s nor the Senate’s transportation bills do enough to help the country’s crumbling infrastructure. But for the House in particular, the bill is simply an excuse to drill-baby-drill and make it that much harder for people without cars to go about their lives.

The new eco-friendly buses have electric motors, and don’t use fuel of any kind, meaning they don’t produce emissions. Instead they are powered by a network of rechargeable batteries.

The buses cost $100,000, about the same as traditional buses, but they are quieter, cleaner, and cheaper to maintain.

“It doesn’t have a transmission. It has very few moving parts, and the vehicle is charged up overnight when the electric grid is being used the least so it’s off-peak,” said Bart Marksohn of WE Transport Inc.

The district is starting out with a one-bust test run over the next 60 days. If approved, the first electric buses will be on the roads in September 2012. The decision to go green was simple for district officials. As one put it, “In implementing this we’re only echoing what the students are learning — to care about their environment. So we’re just building upon what’s being taught in the classroom on a daily basis.”

by Kiley Kroh

Today the House Natural Resources Committee will take up a trio of “drill, baby, drill” bills that would partially pay for the House surface transportation reauthorization bill, designed to fund our nation’s programs for trains and automobiles.

As it stands right now, the bill would last four years and cost $260 billion. Unfortunately, the House Republicans’ version of the transportation bill would throw open protected pristine places for dirty petroleum production.  One proposal opens Alaska’s pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. Another measure opens the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to be drilled and mandates more drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The third proposal makes available millions of acres in the western U.S. to oil shale development.  Despite Boehner’s characterization of the measure as a “job creation package,” it seems to be little more than another Republican giveaway to Big Oil.

Transportation advocates have sought a long-term reauthorization of highway and transit programs, which currently expire on March 31. Traditionally, improvements to roads, bridges, and public transportation are funded by the federal gasoline tax, but GOP leaders in the House are taking the unprecedented step to tie funding to an unnecessary and ineffective increase in fossil fuel production.  As CAP’s Donna Cooper writes, “Congressional Republicans are making this push so they can block movement to create jobs and rebuild our infrastructure while sounding like they are in favor of policies that do both.” Here are the key reasons this package is no solution to repair our nation’s aging transportation infrastructure.

We’re already running more drill rigs than the rest of the world combined. As of last Friday, there were 2,008 drill rigs operating in the U.S. and 1,862 rigs operating in the rest of the world, according to industry statistics. In 2010, total U.S. production (onshore and offshore) was the highest it has been since 2003.  And the Obama administration’s latest five-year offshore leasing plan already makes more than 75% of recoverable offshore resources available for exploration and development.  Clearly, the number of acres available to be drilled is not the problem.

And despite decades of effort, oil shale has never been shown to be economically viable. In addition, it would consume huge amounts of western water in the Colorado River basin that is already facing predictions of severe and prolonged drought and which is relied upon by more than 25 million people in the southwest.

Oil companies are letting the vast majority of their leases sit idle. A Department of Interior report released last year found that more than 70 percent of the tens of millions of offshore acres under lease are inactive, neither producing nor currently subject to approved or pending exploration or development plans.  For onshore leases, 22 million out of a total of 38 million leased onshore acres sit idle.   Instead of opening more of our protected lands and oceans to be drilled, companies should be forced to use the leases they already have, or lose them.

Proposed drilling bills wouldn’t generate enough revenue to meet transportation needs: As Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, emphasizes, the current funding shortfall to just keep our bridges, roads, airports and other existing transportation elements running is $12 billion for the next two years, and more than $75 billion over the next six years – “even using the most optimistic projections, Republican drilling proposals would generate, at most, a little more than $5 billion over 10 years. This is well short of the revenue needed to just to maintain inadequate current investment levels.”

More importantly, the revenue from increased drilling isn’t even guaranteed.  At a hearing late last year, Ryan Alexander of the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense spoke strongly against relying on “speculative” future revenue, stating,

“Paying for a couple of years of transportation funding with expected revenues from an increase in oil and gas drilling that will likely take many years to get rolling is not a responsible budget approach … It’s like buying the Ferrari tomorrow because you are sure a raise is coming sometime in the future.”

Using expanded drilling to lure Republican support has drawn harsh criticism from conservatives, as well.  As Heritage Action for America CEO Michael Needham told Politico, “One of the problems you have in Washington, is you take really bad legislation, which the highway bill is, and you put a sweetener in it … That’s what’s going on here.”

An oil import fee is a real solution for raising revenue. As CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss outlines, “An oil import fee could raise revenue to reduce oil consumption by investing in oil demand reduction programs. Such funds could also reduce the budget deficit—a top priority of congressional Republicans.” A temporary, extremely modest $2.50 per barrel fee on imported oil could raise $8 billion annually.  This would only increase gasoline prices made from foreign oil by six and a half cents per gallon.

It’s clear the House GOP priority is not repairing our crumbling transportation infrastructure, or even creating jobs – it’s simply a way to justify a reckless expansion of fossil fuel production into our last wild places and precious beaches to benefit Big Oil.  In this scenario, they win and the American people lose.

Kiley Kroh is Associate Director of Oceans Communications at the Center for American Progress.

But consumer advocates say the changes are a positive development for travelers who have been swindled by airlines for too long:

Advertisements that make airfares seem enticingly low will soon lose that asterisk pointing to a dense paragraph of additional taxes and fees that make a cheap ticket much more costly.

Beginning Jan. 24, the Transportation Department will enforce a rule requiring that any advertised price for air travel include all government taxes and fees. For the last 25 years, the department has allowed airlines and travel agencies to list government-imposed fees separately, resulting in a paragraph of fine print disclaimers about charges that can add 20 percent or more to a ticket’s price.

But with airlines now promoting fares on Web ads, Facebook and Twitter, and adopting a menu of fees for services that used to be part of the ticket price, the government decided it was time for a change so travelers have a clearer sense of the total price they must pay.

Kate Hanni of FlyersRights.org describes an all-too-common scenario: “People would get up against the point where they were about to make a purchase, and suddenly the cost of their ticket went up because of these taxes and charges.”

“Requiring all mandatory charges to be included in a single advertised price will help consumers compare airfares and make it easier for them to determine the full cost of their trip,” said Bill Mosley, a Transportation department spokesman. The advertising rule is one of a dozen passenger protections the department adopted last spring.

But airlines like Spirit that have built their profits on advertising $9 fares, then charging much more, are determined to resist the new rules. They are also objecting to changes that “allow passengers to cancel a ticket purchase without penalty within 24 hours of booking; include information about baggage fees on e-ticket confirmations; and notify passengers more promptly about flight cancellations and delays.”

The government’s move was prompted by a dramatic increase in deceptive advertising. This year, the Transportation Department issued 21 penalties totaling $1 million in fines for fare advertising violations, compared to 14 penalties and $379,000 in fines in 2001. Spirit, for instance, advertised a $9 fare on Twitter, then forced customers to click links to two more Web pages to find out the full price.

There’s a lot of people still out there, and they want to work. And they need jobs. And this is a great start.

Watch it:

“It’s a step to the future,” Herrera concludes, enthused not only about finding a job but also about being part of the greater mission to repower our nation.