Now that we have finally fixed the FAA funding problem, another major funding bill is expiring and will need to be reauthorized or readjusted on September 30th.

The Federal Gasoline Tax collects 18.4 percent per gallon of gas and 24.4 percent per gallon of diesel and pays for a majority of our transportation and highway projects across the country. But the reality is that it is yet another tax on Americans and we all know that the Tea Party Congress doesn't like that. This time the public is behind them. In a May survey Rasmussen Reports found that 44 percent of Americans favor eliminating the federal gas tax, but those numbers are actually down from 60 percent in early 2008 when gas prices were through the roof.

Interestingly, however, most people (60 percent) believe the gas tax goes up every year according to a 2009 Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research survey, but the reality is it hasn't moved since 1993. That shouldn't preclude the tea party from taking another hard stance against taxes and spending. After all our government is hurting and we need to make drastic cuts, right? Sacrifices? Taxes like these prevent businesses from doing business because they pay such a huge amount in transportation each year. I can see the arguments developing as I type.

In a surly unrelated story, two tea loving members of Congress are taking their own action on transportation funding. Rep. James Lankford and Sen. Tom Coburn, both from Oklahoma, have authored a bill that would opt states out of all federal highway and mass transit funding. The State Transportation and Flexibility Act would leave the revenue earned from the gas tax to the states to decide how to use it. The Oklahoma leaders aren't the only gas tax foes, 13 additional Senators and 23 members of Congress have signed onto the bill. This includes seven members of the Tea Party Caucus and Rep. Ron Paul.

In a graphic done by ESRI, counties across the country are highlighted if they have "structurally deficient bridges." In Coburn and Lankford's state a full third of the counties have over a hundred bridges categorized as deficient. But Senator Coburn believes “Washington’s addiction to spending has bankrupted the Highway Trust Fund."

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I'm the editor of Progressive Congress News Transit & Urban Development feed. This is the first in a weekly series of topical posts on cities and the roads & rails that connect them.

Trains are a highly-developed, widely-used, and very popular form of transportation -- a strange choice of culture war for the right. Yet hatred of trains, especially ones that run on time, is a pronounced theme of Mrs. Rand's Bible of selfish economic wisdom. After decades of gestation in Hollywood development hell, Atlas Shrugged Part I will soon star star Vice President Joe Biden as Dagny Taggart, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood as Hank Rearden, and Florida Governor Rick Scott as Wesley Mouch.

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From Josh

Okay, let's try this one more time.

From the Associated Press on Rep. Istook's statement ...

Istook, chairman of the House Appropriations transportation subcommittee, said in a statement Sunday that the Internal Revenue Service drafted the language, which would not have allowed any inspections of tax returns. "Nobody's privacy was ever jeopardized," the statement said.

The actual text Rep. Istook inserted into the bill ...

Hereinafter, notwithstanding any other provision of law governing the disclosure of income tax returns or return information, upon written request of the Chairman of the House or Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service shall allow agents designated by such Chairman access to Internal Revenue Service facilities and any tax returns or return information contained therein.

Abuse of power or poor reading comprehension? We report; you decide.

I’ve only recently joined the Twitterati, http://twitter.com/nonnythemouse and not being the most technologically proficient of folks, accidently hit the ‘yes’ button to something that obviously must have read, ‘you don’t have any friends, you loser, so how about adding these twenty random people to your contact list?’ One of them, for some unfathomable reason, was Senator John McCain. I’ve managed to pare down my ‘friends’ list to… well… mostly actual friends, but I’ve kept Sen. McCain on the list out of the same morbid curiosity that has me reading Red State’s emailed newsletter on a regular basis.

This morning, my Twitter box had a tweet (give me a break, I’m still learning the slang!) from Sen. McCain which said, ‘Vote on my amendment to eliminate $6 mill in wasteful govt subsidy to private bus companies for GPS systems - need to stop wasteful spending.’

Hmmm… thought I. Let’s go see what this is all about.

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Comments from Left Field: Shameless lies, and the lying liars who tell them

Your Right Hand Thief: Drilling is my business...and business is good!

The Overhead Wire: Conservative anti-transit pundits are worried about the new interest in public transportation.

William K. Wolfrum Chronicles: Jesus quits Christianity after viewing the GOP platform

Inside Iraq: Is a blog updated by Iraqi journalists working for McClatchy Newspapers. They are based in Baghdad and outlying provinces. These are firsthand accounts of their experiences. Their complete names are withheld for security.

The Freewayblogger is on a West Coast Peace Tour

Our Future: How to celebrate Labor Day? Support the Empoyee Free Choice Act

about.com: How GM derailed public transportation to sell more cars

The Brad Blog: Over 16,000 votes "unaccounted for" in Palm Beach county primary election 'recount'. "Severe repercussions, dire consequences for Novemeber elections and all elections" says Broward County election supervisor candidate.

Calculated Risk: Gustav takes aim at NOLA, oil prices

Philosoraptor: McCain's actual choice for V.P.

The Opinion Mill's Sunday Bookchat: Harold Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam to lay old ghosts to rest -- and deplore the creation of new ones in Iraq. Sidney Blumenthal on the self-destruction of the GOP. Plus: How American workers are getting squeezed, how a unique ecosystem is being threatened, and how publishing thinks small.

Living off Dividends:

If you think that gas prices are high at over $3.50 per gallon (I just paid $3.95 for mid-grade for my wife's Acura TSX), wait until summer. There are reports that the refineries are absorbing the cost of high oil prices right now (and some of them have hedging contracts in place to mitigate this high price), but within a few months they'll be passing this burden on to the consumers. Oil prices at the pump could very well hit $5 and if this trend continues, it could hit $8/gallon.

Due of course to the outrageous oil costs, which are more than double what it was going for this time last year.

Oil recently hit an all-time high of nearly $120 a barrel, more than double its early 2007 price of about $50 a barrel. It closed Friday at $118.52.

The forecasts calling for a jump to between $7 and $10 a gallon are based on the view that the price of crude is on its way to $200 in two to three years.

Translating this price into dollars and cents at the gas pump, one of our forecasters, the chairman of Houston-based Dune Energy, Alan Gaines, sees gas rising to $7-$8 a gallon. The other, a commodities tracker at Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla., Sean Brodrick, projects a range of $8 to $10 a gallon.

Of course, that's what they're paying now in Europe. Fortunately for many Europeans, the choice of easy public transportation is available as well, unlike much of our country.

This isn't an especially political story, but I was nevertheless amazed by what we learned at a hearing late last week of the House Transportation Committee. We're not allowed to fly with more than a few ounces of shampoo in a carry-on, but you might be amazed at what airlines can get away with.

In startling disclosures to Congress, federal inspectors overseeing Southwest Airlines say they were repeatedly thwarted by senior government officials from reporting critical problems that compromised the safety of passengers.

Federal whistle-blowers, other federal aviation inspectors and the independent investigator for the Department of Transportation testified Thursday that problems at Southwest were far more widespread than has previously been reported.

Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel said investigators in recent months found violations at the airline in addition to the breaches last year that prompted a $10.2 million fine against the carrier. Southwest violated four different crucial safety requirements on eight occasions since December 2006, including five this year, Scovel said.... Southwest knowingly flew 46 jets that had not received required inspections for cracks in the fuselage. When the inspections were finally completed, mechanics found cracks on six of the jets. Similar cracks caused a fatal air disaster on a jet in 1988 in Hawaii.

If this were simply a story of an airline trying to cut corners, and in the process putting passengers at risk, it would be startling enough. But in this case, we're talking about federal inspectors who were pressured by their superiors to allow an airline to put passengers at risk.

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I can't believe I had to make that statement. I thought it was a pain to have to remove your shoes and dump your baby's bottle to get through the security checkpoint. Now this?

A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation. [..]

Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin's chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.
She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

"Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her," said Hamlin's attorney, Gloria Allred, reading from a letter she sent Thursday to the director of the TSA's Office of Civil Rights and Liberties. [..]

She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.

Okay, this is just stupid. The belly button ring stays, but the nipple piercings have to go? Does anyone feel safer knowing the skies are free of some body piercings? What is the fear? That she'll rub up against the plane with her chest and scratch the fuselage? Alan Colmes has the pictures of the confiscated hardware. (h/t Tim in Japan)

Someone tipped me to this blog by Brad Bonham on the imperative we all must accept to do what we can to be more environmentally aware.

The alternative to our current system is a system that is unimaginable but begs us all to take the world and our place in it very seriously. All hands will need to be on deck. Every church, organization, business, and citizen will need to dig down deep and figure out if the world and its children are worth saving, and we'll need all the creativity and ingenuity in the world to figure out how to do it. If we do, maybe, just maybe our children will see a bright green future. If we carry on with life like it's business as usual, we might not get a chance to tell our children we're sorry.

So, that's where I've been. On the long, dark journey of a consuming soul who realizes that things in the years ahead will need to change drastically, but hopefully for the better. After all, my journey towards caring started with figuring out how to end poverty, and it took me to the unexpected twists and turns of sustainability. As it turns out, sustainability might help us avert wars as well.

I offer you two links to start your own journey. One is a dark alternative we face if we don't quickly change, and the other is a bright possibility we (hopefully) face if we all unite and realize that living like we give a damn might just mean we and our children get to live to see a better world.

1) Dark - Long Emergency
2) Bright - Worldchanging

John Amato several months ago recommended the documentary A Crude Awakening to me and the ramifications of Peak Oil as examined in the movie have haunted me to this day, and I've really tried to make very mindful choices to be more green. I really weigh how important it is every time I get in my car and try to carpool or use public transportation as much as possible...John laughs at me because I'm resistant to upgrading my pathetically old computer because I hate the notion of how un-environmental that is. Even little things like using compact fluorescent bulbs, canvas shopping bags (the bagger thought I was nuts when I forgot my canvas bags one day and asked him to place the unbagged groceries in the cart directly rather than me taking home any plastic bags) and avoiding using appliances during peak hours does make a big difference.

So in honor of Gore's Nobel win for raising awareness and Blog Action Day, I ask that you share with fellow C&Lers some ideas for making your life more green.