House of Representatives

The committees with jurisdiction over transportation are shrinking. In the Senate, committee membership is only going from 21 to 20. But the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is experiencing a much more significant belt-tightening, shrinking from a committee of 75 to just 59. Of those 59, 33 are Republicans and 26 are Democrats.

Rep. Richard Hanna is one of 19 freshmen Republicans on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. (Duncan Hunter is the 20th new Republican on the committee, but he’s not a freshman.) He represents New York’s 24th District, which includes Cooperstown, Utica, Norwich and the Finger Lakes. He’s a licensed pilot, an NRA member, and the founder of a crisis fund for women. We caught up with him to talk transportation and asked him some questions from our readers.

Sitting beneath the famous zodiac mural of Grand Central's main concourse, with the rumble of commuters and trains in the background, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held its first field hearing of the new session this morning. The topic was the future of high-speed rail on the Northeast Corridor.

Streetsblog Capitol Hill caught up with Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) yesterday after the T&I Committee meeting wrapped up. He’s the only new Republican on the committee who’s not also a new member of Congress. He followed his father, also named Duncan Hunter, into the seat. Hunter is on the Republican Study Committee that recently pushed for cutting $100 billion from the federal budget. New to transportation and infrastructure issues, Hunter has mainly focused on military matters and immigration.

Meet the new House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

A new Republican proposal would eliminate federal subsidies to Amtrak; kill New Starts, the primary federal transit funding program; and make painful cuts to dozens of other federal programs. It’s a plan by the Republican Study Committee, which is trying to keep alive House Speaker John Boehner’s campaign pledge to reduce the budget by $100 million. Boehner himself has been backing off from the pledge, given the popularity of many of the programs the Study Committee is now proposing to axe.

The headlines have been apocalyptic.

The assault on the MTA's already battered finances could now come from yet another front: the federal government. The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives passed a rule Wednesday that would allow reductions in federal transportation spending, including investment in transit. That puts previously secure federal funds on the negotiating table, making it that much harder for the MTA to balance its books.

Update: We just learned that Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) has been confirmed as the new Ranking Member of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee.