STAA

Donald Boudreaux, economist at George Mason University in northern Virginia writes at Cafe Hayek that the Obama administration, in contemplating regulation has the wrong approach to fluctuations in the price of oil.

by Payson R Peabody, Dykema       Members of Congress who believe in fiscal responsibility, tax fairness, and state autonomy should think twice about endorsing the highway reauthorization bill that began working its way through Congress on Wednesday. The bipartisan legislation crafted by House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN) severely restricts one of the most viable options

US Rep Pete DeFazio issued a statement today claiming that the solution to a funding gap in the proposed $450 billion six year highway and transit program is a tax on oil futures trades. DeFazio proposes a 0.02% tax on every oil futures contract and a 0.5% tax on futures option contracts. He says this would raise $190b over the six years of the STAA reauthorization, "more than enough to fill the gap." That's $32b/year.

A USDOT official says we misinterpreted the new surface transportation bill (STAA/2009) in reporting that authority for HOT lanes is discontinued.  Here http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/4218

The Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009 (STAA or hb44) filed today by US house transport committee chair James Oberstar requires the US Secretary of Transportation to establish a "national standard for the interoperability of electronic toll collection devices for all  toll facilities on the National Highway System" within 18 months of the law's enactment.