Naomi Jagoda

The U.S. Department of Transportation has suspended consideration of a $5.5 billion loan request for a high-speed rail project from Las Vegas to Southern California.

The newest U.S. Senator, Ed Markey, has been assigned to the Commerce, Science and Transportation committee, which splits jurisdiction over transportation issues with the Environment and Public Works Committee.

The American Association of Airport Executives is urging Congress members to permanently eliminate the alternative minimum tax penalty on airport-issued private activity bonds.

Maryland plans to sell a total of $475 million of triple-A rated tax-exempt and taxable general obligation bonds in two competitive sales on July 24, state officials said recently.

Industrial production rose 0.3% in June, while capacity utilization edged up to 77.8% from a revised 77.7% in May, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday.

The Hilton Baltimore Convention Center Hotel will likely need city funds to help pay debt service on revenue bonds issued by the city in 2006 and that will be a credit negative for the bonds, Moody's Investor's Service said Thursday.

The federal government ran a $116.5 billion surplus in June, the largest June surplus on record and the largest monthly surplus since April 2008 when it was $159 billion, the Treasury reported Thursday.

State debt issuance has remained below average levels even though governments have large infrastructure needs and less ability to pay for projects through pay-as-you-go financing, Standard & Poor's said in a report.

Toll revenue from the I-495 express lanes in Northern Virginia increased 64.6% from the first to second quarters of this year, according to Transurban Group, the Australian infrastructure firm that operates the lanes.

Republican leaders on the House Transportation Committee said Tuesday that they intend to reauthorize a rail bill this year and want the legislation to take into consideration innovative financing methods such as public-private partnerships and federal loans.

A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday about the role that innovative financing tools, such as tax-increment financing, federal loans and public-private partnerships, can play in funding intercity passenger rail projects.

North Dakota and other rural states led the Reason Foundation's performance rankings of state highway systems based on 2009 data, while more populous states including New Jersey, California and New York found themselves toward the bottom of the ratings.

Anthony Foxx was sworn in as U.S. Secretary of Transportation Tuesday morning in a private ceremony at the department's headquarters.