Word: oberstar
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...funds will be split among nine areas for which Oberstar is responsible: highways and bridges, transit, rail, aviation, environmental infrastructure, Army Corps of Engineers, brownfields, federal buildings, and Coast Guard and maritime administration. All the money will go to projects that are shovel-ready - meaning they've completed their environmental-impact studies, the engineering and design plans have been approved and certified, and in the case of roads, the rights of way have been acquired. The projects are all outside the regular transportation process. Most transportation infrastructure is financed through a formula - usually an 80%-20% split between the federal...
...those who claim that the messy bureaucracy usually involved in the quadrennial transportation legislation would hardly be an effective spark for a deeply troubled economy, Oberstar insists this time is different. All projects will be required to have broken ground and to report back to Congress on their progress within 60 days of the bill's enactment. They must report again in an additional 90 days and once again 60 days after that. All these reports will be combed over by the Obama Administration and Congress and will be made public online. "I've never seen anything like this," Oberstar...
...Despite what Obama has promised, Oberstar is the first to admit that there is no real way to prevent projects like the Bridge to Nowhere, the controversial $185 million earmark requested by former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens for an island with a population of 50. Though the bridge was never built, the earmark became a symbol for congressional excess and waste. Transportation, as such a local issue, lends itself naturally to earmarks, and Oberstar's committee is a bit infamous on the Hill as a friendly home to such pork-barrel projects. But Oberstar is in constant contact with Obama...
...Still, Oberstar points out, "We're not going to substitute our judgment for local judgment. But I think there's enough sensitivity among state agencies that have real need, real benefit, and will have lasting service to the community." He then grabs a sheaf of papers from his desk. The printouts, which look like massive Excel spreadsheets, are a list of ready-to-go water projects in Minnesota. Stabbing at the sheets, Oberstar points to one item, a smallish request to build a sewage system for a tiny town in Minnesota. "I suppose someone from New York City...
...this is, of course, just one small piece of the broader, potentially trillion-dollar stimulus plan, but it's one that Oberstar swears has the best shot of fixing the economy. "We are facing a worldwide economic, financial meltdown," he says. "And these measures taken so far by Treasury to stabilize the bank system itself, free up credit, are either not working or working so slowly that there is no trust in the credit system. And you need something much bigger. You need to put people to work...