TTD in the news

WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week, Rep. Emilia Sykes (OH-13) led a letter with Reps. Seth Moulton (MA-06), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), Don Bacon (NE-02), and 74 additional House members to House and Senate leadership calling for any upcoming government funding package to include robust funding for Amtrak and its passenger rail services. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, […]

Reported by Dan Zukowski for SmartCitiesDive.

As Congress stumbles toward a likely government shutdown at midnight on Oct. 1, state and local officials, including those responsible for law enforcement and transportation, are assessing how a shutdown would affect their operations. Depending on the length of any shutdown and the specific federal personnel and agencies it would affect, some impacts could be minimal but others may have serious consequences.

If Congress does not enact fiscal year 2024 appropriations or a continuing resolution to fund government activities at current levels before the midnight deadline, the federal government activities that depend on annual appropriations will come to a halt once their funding runs out. Only 10 times since 1977 has the federal government lacked legal authority to spend money; it went into shutdown mode nine of those times. The most recent and longest shutdown began Dec. 21, 2018, during the Trump administration and lasted 34 days.

Reported by Irving Mejia-Hilario for the Dallas Morning News.

Over 7,000 union workers in Illinois and Michigan joined other striking auto workers Friday as the United Auto Workers widened its work stoppage to win higher wages and benefits from Detroit’s Big Three automakers.

UAW President Shawn Fain called on workers at a Ford assembly plant in Chicago and a General Motors plant outside Lansing, Mich., to join about 18,000 other strikers across the country.

Reported by Joanna Marsh for Freightwaves.

On the surface, a government shutdown — which can occur if Congress can’t agree on how to handle the appropriations budgets — would have a limited impact on freight rail operations.

Freight railroads will keep running, transporting parts, materials and goods within North America and to and from the coastal ports. Ensuring safe operations will also be paramount, according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

WASHINGTON—Today, Senators Mike Braun, Jon Tester, Roger Marshall and Pete Ricketts introduced bipartisan legislation to enshrine a continued role for American farmers in the Food for Peace (FFP) program and increase accountability and transparency in FFP program functions. U.S. Representatives Tracey Mann (KS-01), John Garamendi (CA-08), Rick Crawford (AR-01), and Jimmy Panetta (CA-19) introduced the […]

The Coalition on Human Needs and 680 local, state, and national groups delivered a message to Congress Tuesday: do your duty and keep government running.  The groups delivered a letter to every member of the House and Senate urging passage of a clean, bipartisan continuing resolution (CR), including “emergency funding that supports current services and addresses urgent […]

 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Rob Menendez is leading a bipartisan coalition of 114 Members of Congress, urging the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to immediately act on rulemaking required by the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) to protect public transit operators from assault. The call to address America’s transit worker safety crisis is supported by the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), the […]

Opinion Contributors Ray LaHood and Greg Regan for the Hill.

High-speed rail is coming to America, and working people should take notice.

The Biden Administration is planning to use funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to construct multiple high-speed rail lines. This is a very big deal for American workers.

In addition to transforming daily commutes, expanding access to affordable housing and helping win the fight against climate change, high-speed rail projects will create a whole new field of exciting work opportunities — and they’re already creating thousands of good union jobs today.

The major freight railroads say a disagreement over whether they will be allowed to discipline some workers who use a government hotline to report safety concerns has kept them from following through on the promise they made back in March to join the program after a fiery Ohio derailment prompted calls for reforms.

Unions and workplace safety experts say the idea of disciplining workers who report safety concerns undermines the purpose of creating such a hotline because workers won’t use it if they fear retribution. Programs like this one overseen by the Federal Railroad Administration are especially important in an industry like railroads where there is a long history of workers being fired for reporting safety violations or injuries, experts say.

LAS VEGAS, NV – On Friday, U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) held a press conference calling on the U.S. Department of Transportation to fund Nevada’s application for federal funding to construct the Brightline West high-speed rail project, which will boost Nevada’s tourism economy. She was joined by Brightline CEO Michael Reininger, Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft, […]