Transportation Oversight Bill Moves Forward
The House has passed House Bill 7138, which I introduced to ensure that your tax dollars spent on large scale transportation projects are accounted for. It establishes an 18-member Transportation Policy Advisory Council to develop and recommend policies for improving transportation planning and selecting transportation projects.
That means decisions on building and upgrading roads, bridges, buses, ports, and airports will have to be made in public, so we all can know what’s going on and why. It also means that "transportation project" is defined in law for the first time ever, an important step to ending raids on the Special Transportation Fund for non-transportation purposes.
Significant taxpayer dollars – especially the gas tax - go to transportation projects, making it especially important that the process of selecting and reviewing projects is open and transparent.