The “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act”, known as MAP 21, keeps transportation programs running through the end of fiscal year 2014 and calls for transferring $18.8 billion from the general fund to the highway and transit trust funds. House Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) appointed Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-California) help negotiate the final bill between the House and the Senate. Authorized funding was set to expire Friday night.
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Both the Senate and the House have passed long-term bills this year, though the two bills, while similar, are not the same.
Bob Ambrogi, executive director of the MA Newspaper Publishers Association, told the News Service the bill is a “mixed bag”, and he said smaller newspapers could be encouraged to demand production of records in court because the bill allows judges to award attorney’s fees.
Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, also endorses this amendment.
“I’m particularly excited about the bill we sent to the House about six weeks ago”, Rosenberg said of the opioid bill, which the Senate passed in October.
A bipartisan conference committee of about two dozen lawmakers met Wednesday to work on compromise legislation that merges two different education bills that passed the House and Senate in July, years after the Bush-era law was supposed to be reauthorized. In September, the Office of Management and Budget issued guidance explaining its efforts to modernize the process. It was subsequently folded into the surface transportation and highway reauthorization package. “I don’t think we will be dealing with it over here”.
“The Ways & Means bill contains a number of strong reforms for government transparency”, the American Civil Liberties Union of MA wrote in an email endorsing passage of the bill.
The vote was 289-137, with 47 Democrats joining 242 Republicans in favor of the bill, creating a majority that could override President Barack Obama’s promised veto. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate education committee and a former US education secretary.
“Everything is good on our side of the Capitol”, he said.
The House on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill that seeks to improve access to public records in MA by modernizing rules that were last updated in 1973.
“This is the last extension”.
While individual homeowners are exempt from the caps, the inability of lawmakers to raise them is making it harder for larger projects and residents of apartment buildings to benefit from the program, advocates said. “Why wouldn’t I want them?”
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A key Democrat on the conference committee, Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, said the proposal “ensures that when achievement gaps are found, meaningful action will be taken to intervene and support the needs of students”.
