The reviews are in, and they're nearly all raves. Just about everyone seems happy about the enactment of a long-term, long-awaited transportation bill.
David Latimer, wearing a South Carolina Highway Patrol button on his lapel, was working Capitol Hill one recent morning, warning of the dangers of longer and heavier trucks on the nation's highways.
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.
Transportation industry groups are lining up to praise Congress's passage of a bill to resuscitate the Highway Trust Fund. But there's little reason to celebrate.
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.
