Want to get a sense of how new federal regulations will affect transportation tomorrow? Look at California today.

Tom Sanderson, chief executive officer of Transplace, runs down the various new regulations and pieces of legislation that could have a deep impact on shippers and the nation's transportation system.

Give Congress credit for finally coming to agreement on a new surface transportation bill, after months of acrimonious debate and nine extensions of the old funding law, known as SAFETY-LU. The fact that the Senate and House of Representatives could agree on anything at all is, I suppose, reason to applaud, especially given the toxic atmosphere that chokes the political scene today. And this new measure is something more than a "kick-the-can-down-the-road" effort, given that it maintains current highway funding levels until September 2014.