- I served as the only Maryland Member of the House of Representatives on
the Conference Committee that produced the Safe, Accountable,
Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2005: A Legacy for
Users (SAFETEA-LU), H.R. 3 (now P.L. 109-59). SAFETEA-LU
authorizes more than $286 billion in federal funding for highway and transit
construction and maintenance projects through 2009. Under SAFETEA-LU,
Maryland’s will receive approximately $579 million in average annual highway
aid – an increase of nearly 31 percent over the average annual highway aid
received by Maryland under the previous transportation authorization.
SAFETEA-LU will also provide $845 million in total transit formula aid to
Maryland – an increase of 48 percent over the $570 million in transit aid
received by the state under the previous authorization. For the 7th
Congressional District, I secured $38 million to fund high priority roadway
projects and nearly $8.4 million to fund construction of a new Greyhound
terminal in Baltimore and of a new transit maintenance and operations
facility in Howard County.
- I secured more than $15 million in funding for key transportation
projects in the 7th Congressional District as part of the
Transportation, Treasury, Housing, Urban Development, The Judiciary,
District of Columbia, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal
Year 2006, H.R. 3058. This funding includes:
-
$12,420,000 for the completion of the Baltimore Light Rail Double Tracking
project;
-
$2,000,000 for the study of the Red and Green Line transit project in
Baltimore;
-
$500,000 in funding to replace Maryland Transit Administration buses and
support the statewide bus replacement program; and,
-
$500,000 to support research at the University Transportation Center at
Morgan State University.
- I authored the Hazardous Materials Cooperative Research Act
of 2005, H.R. 909, which would bring together experts from federal
agencies as well as state and local governments and the private sector to
research in hazardous materials transportation that are cross-cutting in nature
(such as routing and packaging) and that are not adequately addressed by
existing research programs. Several provisions from this bill were adopted as
part of SAFETEA-LU, H.R. 3, P.L. 109-59 – and SAFETEA-LU provides
$1,250,000 in funding per year for fiscal years 2006 through 2009 to implement
these research provisions.
- I am a co-sponsor of the Amtrak Reauthorization Act of 2005,
H.R. 1630, which would authorize $2 billion of federal funding per year
for Amtrak for each of fiscal years 2006, 2007, and 2008. (This
legislation passed the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on
April 27, 2005, and awaits action by the full House of Representatives).