House hesitant to release transpo bill

If you were waiting on pins and needles for the official announcement of the House of Representative transportation bill, you might want to get comfortable. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) planned on introducing the bill on Nov. 17 during a press conference, but stopped short of doing so.

It appears the House leadership is leaning towards going with the bill introduced by Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), titled the American-Made Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act. Stivers calls for increased oil drilling in the form of off-shore leases to “provide a new dedicated source of revenue to fund infrastructure projects.”

Other bullet points of the bill, which could be five years instead of six, are:

• * It will consolidate duplicative parts of the federal transportation system;
• * It will shift responsibility to states and local governments to move transportation projects forward:
• * It will increase the ability to leverage financial resources; and
• * Projects would be significantly streamlined.

Mica hopes the official unveiling of the bill comes soon, and Boehner wants the measure to be voted on before year’s end.