MTR 300, NY, NJ Keep Seats on Key Senate Panel

Mobilizing the Region
Issue 300 January 15, 2001

NY, NJ Keep Seats on Key Senate Panel

Senators Hillary Clinton and Jon Corzine have both been named to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The EPW Committee is the panel that will do much of the Senate's legwork on reauthorization of federal transportation spending in 2003. The metropolitan region and the northeastern U.S. had potentially lost critical representation on the committee with the simultaneous retirement of Senators Moynihan and Lautenberg. Clinton's and Corzine's appointments restore that representation, though at a less senior level. CT Senator Joseph Lieberman will continue as a member of that committee

Corzine was also installed on the Senate Banking and Urban Affairs Committee, which oversees the mass transit part of federal authorizations. Corzine joins NY's Senator Charles Schumer on that panel.

Metropolitan area groups, including the General Contractors Association and Tri-State Transportation Campaign, had urged Clinton and Corzine to seek committee postings that would serve their states' needs for significant federal transportation funding.

The Surface Transportation Policy Project hailed the Bush Administration's selection of Norman Mineta as its nominee for U.S. Secretary of Transportation. "In Congress, Mineta helped restructure transportation funding to give states and localities more choices in spending federal money. Now this is bearing fruit, with major upsurges in transit ridership and demand for everything from new rail systems to more walkable communities," said STPP director Roy Kienitz.

Mineta, a California Democrat, chaired the House Transportation Committee for a short time. He is currently Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton Administration. Airline, port and railroad industry figures also gave high marks to Bush's naming of Mineta.