Audrey Dutton

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is preparing a proposal for a multi-year transportation bill that will talk about the importance of developing “institutional capacity” to support a national high-speed rail network, a federal rail official revealed Wednesday night at a conference here.

WASHINGTON — Congress should create two types of direct-pay transportation bonds to help states and localities build and repair crumbling infrastructure, market participants told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee during a hearing Tuesday.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said last week that it’s unlikely Congress will approve a comprehensive energy bill either this year or next.

Congress last week approved a three-month extension of aviation and airport programs that will allow airports to continue to collect the taxes that they use to pay for capital improvements.

WASHINGTON — Crumbling infrastructure may inhibit an economic recovery, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Thursday in a report that relies on a newly created index that measures transportation performance and ties it to the economy.

WASHINGTON — Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell is pushing for the creation of a state transportation infrastructure bank that would be funded with revenue from the privatization of state-owned liquor stores and provide an array of financing tools for road construction and other projects.

A national infrastructure bank could complement an extended Build America Bonds program, but no detailed proposal for the bank is ready to be unveiled soon by the Obama administration, officials told the Senate Banking Committee ­Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — Despite a renewed push this month for a national infrastructure bank, market participants are at odds over such basic issues as how it would be funded and structured and what projects should receive its help.

WASHINGTON — Three firms have submitted conceptual proposals to the Virginia Department of Transportation for a public-private partnership that would develop a new tolled highway in the southern part of the state.

WASHINGTON — Five airports will receive a total of $9 million in unexpected grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act because of lower-than-expected bids on other airports’ stimulus projects.

WASHINGTON — The president is expected Wednesday in Cleveland to announce details of a $50 billion measure that would lead into a long-term program containing a national infrastructure bank — a proposal already offered by the administration but now being rolled out as part of an economic package.

WASHINGTON — Transportation stakeholders expecting a comprehensive bill anytime soon could be disappointed as major legislation reauthorizing federal highway and transit programs could be delayed until 2013, sources said last week.

State tax revenues are slowly climbing out of recession levels, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government concluded in a report released Monday.

The Obama administration is calling on the Supreme Court to overturn a federal appeals court ruling that would allow fossil-fuel-burning plants, and potentially publicly owned power utilities, to be sued as contributors to climate change.

WASHINGTON — A northern Virginia county suing federal and state transportation authorities over certain environmental exemptions for planned high-occupancy toll lanes on two interstate highways has asked the court to add another federal official as a defendant.

As members of Congress and the White House struggle to find a suitable replacement for, or addition to, the current gas tax that provides funding for transportation infrastructure, at least one lawmaker is floating the idea of a sales tax on motor fuels.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is challenging in federal court the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the federal Clean Air Act.

Many states will have to revisit their fiscal 2011 budgets and may have to rearrange their spending plans due to gaps between what they expected and what they actually receive from a six-month extension of extra federal Medicaid funding.

WASHINGTON — Fitch Ratings this week released expanded global criteria that its analysts will use to evaluate debt secured by tolled facilities such as roads, bridges, and tunnels.

WASHINGTON — Since the beginning of the year, Wall Street firms, trade associations, and municipal bond issuers have significantly stepped up their lobbying efforts to get lawmakers to extend the Build America Bonds program before it expires at the end of December.