Latest news with #HouseTransportationCommittee
Business Mayor
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Mayor
Montana clears the road for motorized scooters under new law
Motorized scooters, popularized in culture by companies like Lime, are now a specifically regulated mode of transportation in the state. Signed into law last week, House Bill 588, brought by Rep. Neil Duram, R-Eureka, defines motor scooters and adds safety regulations for users, the Daily Montanan reports. Motorized scooters now have the same rights on the roadway as a cyclist or someone riding a moped. The law also includes single-wheels, which essentially are motorized skateboards. During the bill's hearing in the House Transportation Committee, Duram, a former member of the Montana Highway Patrol, relayed a story about a kid in his community riding a single wheel on the roadway. To his credit, Duram said, the kid is safe while he rides — but being on the roadway was technically illegal. 'I suspect your community has a kid just about like him,' Duram said. 'This really is his transportation.' Duram said that trying to solve the problem of the single wheels led him to consider motorized scooters, too. The issue was seats — if something didn't have a seat, it could not be on the road. The bill solved the legal issue. It also stipulates that motorized scooters can't go faster than 30 mph. Importantly, motorized scooters are distinguished from motorized vehicles — an important difference because it means someone cannot be charged with driving under the influence while operating a scooter. That does not, however, mean they could not be charged with other offenses. Duram said on the House floor on April 16 in that situation, the person could be given a public intoxication charge. Read More Wellness on Wheels Is Possible - WIRED The new law provides another avenue of transportation for those who lose their license. 'My intention was that they'd be traveling at relatively slow speeds to transport the operator to and from his destination and location without the necessity of him having a driver's license,' Duram said in the hearing. 'This becomes, without a driver's license, one of your standard forms of transportation.' Motorized scooters are required to have white headlights, and red lights or reflectors facing behind There's also stipulations on brakes, requiring a motorized scooter be able to stop from 10 mph within 25 feet. Scooters are not allowed to be operated by motor on sidewalks or bike paths. Riders must yield to pedestrians when operating the vehicle. Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Montana clears the road for motorized scooters under new law
Motorized scooters operated by Lime, a transportation rental agency, are pictured in Seattle. (SDOT photo) Motorized scooters, popularized in culture by companies like Lime, are now a specifically regulated mode of transportation in the state. Signed into law last week, House Bill 588, brought by Rep. Neil Duram, R-Eureka, defines motor scooters and adds safety regulations for users. Motorized scooters now have the same rights on the roadway as a cyclist or someone riding a moped. The law also includes single-wheels, which essentially are motorized skateboards. During the bill's hearing in the House Transportation Committee, Duram, a former member of the Montana Highway Patrol, relayed a story about a kid in his community riding a single wheel on the roadway. To his credit, Duram said, the kid is safe while he rides — but being on the roadway was technically illegal. 'I suspect your community has a kid just about like him,' Duram said. 'This really is his transportation.' Duram said that trying to solve the problem of the single wheels led him to consider motorized scooters, too. The issue was seats — if something didn't have a seat, it could not be on the road. The bill solved the legal issue. It also stipulates motorized scooters can't go faster than 30 mph. Importantly, motorized scooters are distinguished from motorized vehicles — an important difference because it means someone cannot be charged with driving under the influence while operating a scooter. That does not, however, mean they could not be charged with other offenses. Duram said on the House floor on April 16 in that situation the person could be given a public intoxication charge. The new law provides another avenue of transportation for those who lose their license. 'My intention was that they'd be traveling at relatively slow speeds to transport the operator to and from his destination and location without the necessity of him having a driver's license,' Duram said in the hearing. 'This becomes, without a driver's license, one of your standard forms of transportation.' Motorized scooters are required to have white headlights, and red lights or reflectors facing behind There's also stipulations on brakes, requiring a motorized scooter be able to stop from 10 mph within 25 feet. Scooters are not allowed to be operated by motor on sidewalks or bike paths. Riders must yield to pedestrians when operating the vehicle.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
It'll Cost About $31 Billion To Fix America's Airports And It All Might Go To Elon Musk
Asking Congress for tens of billions of dollars doesn't seem like a big ask for a new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. However, lawmakers get sheepish if you want to modernize the country's crumbling air traffic control infrastructure. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy unveiled his plan to fix aviation safety last Thursday, blandly titled "Brand New Air Traffic Control System." He wouldn't attach a price tag to the revamp plan, but groups within the aviation industry believe it will cost $31 billion. However, the revamp would worryingly involve giving a single contract to one company. The framework document outlining the "Brand New Air Traffic Control System" emphasized the urgency of how dated and broken the current infrastructure is. The eight-page summary directly referenced the 2023 NOTAM system failure that caused the first nationwide ground stop since 9/11. The proposal's scale is monumental. It would involve digitizing flight management systems at nearly 90 airports, replacing over 25,000 radios and modernizing over 600 airborne radar systems. In three years, air traffic controllers will move from tracking planes with handwriting on paper strips to computer terminals. Read more: Cheap-Feeling, Underpowered, Or Just Ugly, These Cars Don't Justify Their Price Despite the Trump administration's obsession with reducing federal spending and recklessly gutting the government, the White House is seemingly willing to spare no expense to get this done and is successfully begging Congress for the money. According to Politico, the House Transportation Committee approved $12.5 billion to modernize air traffic control. However, Committee Chair Sam Graves stated that the massive sum was only a "down payment." The Modern Skies Coalition estimates that it will cost $31 billion. The group advocates for industry modernization and includes nearly the entire industry in some capacity, from aerospace giant Boeing to the Teamsters. There's a plan and there's a vague price tag, so who's going to do the work? President Donald Trump phoned into Duffy's press conference to state that the administration wants to award only a single contract for the entire project. According to FlightGlobal, He said through Duffy's smartphone: "The ancient infrastructure is buckling. We'd like to give out one big beautiful contract, where they are responsible for everything from digging ditches to the most-complicated stuff." It seems like a recipe for disaster to hand out a single contract for this massive project. Trump said that they were already in talks with multiple bidders, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that SpaceX is bidding for the $31 billion contract. Elon Musk's private space company was tasked by the President in January to diagnose the problems with air traffic control. In February, the FAA also awarded a contract to Starlink to be its new backbone for weather information transmissions. This just seems like another opportunity to shovel money into Musk's bank account. The White House shouldn't be using the desperate situation to give massive sums of money to its allies. The growing public apprehension to fly caused by January's fatal mid-air collision at Reagan National Airport hasn't been calmed by the administration's response of shifting blame elsewhere. The crisis is only getting worse with the disturbing outages at Newark-Liberty International Airport over the past weeks. The facility's air traffic controllers endured 90-second intervals where they lost communications with planes and the aircraft weren't visible on radar. It was compounded by personnel going on leave to deal with the traumatic experience, because they knew how grave the outcome could've been. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Congressman Jimmy Patronis talks air traffic concerns and President Trump's tax cuts
BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – Congressman Jimmy Patronis was the keynote speaker at the Bay Builders Industry Scholarship Luncheon on Monday. Patronis was elected to Congress on April 1st. On Monday he talked about a variety of topics concerning Washington politics and Bay County. Patronis addressed air traffic concerns with the Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy's plan to update the control systems. He said the House Transportation Committee has earmarked $12.5 billion to update an outdated system. Patronis also spoke of the need for the House and Senate to agree on a budget by Memorial Day weekend, with numbers that include all of Trump's tax cuts. 'If we do not get those passed by Memorial Day weekend, the average taxpayer is going to see a tax hike of about 22%. The average family of four will see about a $700 tax hike. There's a program that's a child tax credit, that will be cut in half so that money will affect about 20 million families as opposed to 40 million families. Nearly every taxpayer will see their guaranteed deductions slashed. About 26 million small businesses will be saddled with massive tax increases. So by not renewing them then automatically those new taxes, old taxes, get reinstated. So in addition to renewing those tax cuts and then no tax on tips, overtime on social security, all those things cost money,' Congressman Jimmy Patronis said. Patronis also claimed that the majority of President Trump's executive orders are in the best interest of taxpayers. He also warned of upcoming medicaid changes, but didn't elaborate. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Duffy asks Congress to fund a huge fix for America's aviation system — minus a price tag
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday called on Congress to swiftly give him an unspecified amount of money so he can modernize America's aging air traffic control systems in just a few years, along with changes to permitting requirements that he said have drawn out previous efforts. Speaking at DOT headquarters in Washington, Duffy rolled out an ambitious plan to modernize huge pieces of the aviation system to improve safety and to better accommodate the predicted growth of new technologies like drones and commercial spacecraft. 'We need all of the money up front,' Duffy said during a news conference, calling on Congress to swing into action so that his agency can execute the plan in roughly three to four years' time. 'One of the problems in the past is when you give small tranches of money year over year, politics change, leadership changes, presidents change ... and it never gets built.' Duffy later told reporters the final price tag will depend on Congress and suggested he wants lawmakers to tell him what they can fund first. 'It's hard for me to put this out for bid before I have the money and that can offend the Congress,' he said, adding that he'd like to "get some approval from the Congress if they think we're going to get the dollars to get companies that would want to bid ... so we can move faster once we have the money.' Duffy said Congress also needs to enact 'permitting reform' so 'we don't have to deal with all of the regulation' around construction that he said slows down progress. Whether Congress will go along with Duffy's request remains to be seen, especially without a price tag. The House Transportation Committee recently approved $12.5 billion as part of its piece of the GOP megabill intended to help fund President Donald Trump's domestic agenda. Duffy conceded that whatever the final bill, it will be "more than" $12 billion. Speaking at the event, House Transportation Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) said, "We will start this process and there will be more money that comes along later.' Graves described the $12.5 billion package as a 'down payment' on the plan. The Modern Skies Coalition, an umbrella group for dozens of aviation industry groups including major U.S. airlines and some associated unions, said it would take $31 billion to do what Duffy wants to do — and maybe more. Duffy also called President Donald Trump during his news conference to weigh in — and put him on speakerphone. 'We'd like to give out one big, beautiful contract,' Trump said through Duffy's cellphone, and solicited suggestions on what single firm could best carry out the project — everything from 'digging ditches' to 'the most sophisticated stuff.' Earlier at the White House on Thursday, Trump said the U.S. will be 'buying' the new system and it's 'going out to bid very soon.' It will 'cover the entire world,' he added. Later, responding to a reporter's question about potential conflicts of interest in contracting involving Elon Musk, Duffy said he's "agnostic" about whether Musk's companies should be involved. Duffy said the "gold standard" for communications upgrades would be fiber cable and that he wouldn't commit to either promising or denying Musk access; rather, he will let it 'go through the process.' The agency's plan includes replacing dated telecommunications equipment with either fiber or satellite technology — which Duffy has for weeks said underpins many complex systems. Such upgrades will apply to more than 4,500 sites, and will include 'brand new radios,' Duffy said. DOT also wants to use new hardware and software to help streamline to a 'common system' across its facilities, including control towers. The proposal also includes more than 600 new radars,and increasing the amount of surface detection technologies at airports — a priority of the National Transportation Safety Board following a 2023 near-catastrophe at Austin Bergstrom International Airport. A significant component of the plan also envisions closing and consolidating several of the FAA's 21 large air traffic control nerve centers, which guide traffic in large swaths of the airspace. The plan asserts that the only reason to have that many centers is because they use old technologies, and will include building six new air traffic control centers. Closing or relocating FAA facilities historically has been a difficult task, in part due to politics — and those dynamics aren't likely to change. That means those consolidation plans could get quickly gummed up as lawmakers move to protect jobs and influence in their regions. Duffy's blueprint calls for "supplemental funding in a comprehensive three-year framework" but gives no further details. However, the Modern Skies Coalition's proposal contains details that appear to dovetail with this piece, including calling for "a minimum" of $18.5 billion — in addition to the $12.5 billion Congress has indicated it can fund — in emergency funding over the next three years. Duffy started to tout his plan in the wake of January's midair disaster near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, telling reporters in March that he wanted to build a 'brand new' system. (Following the collision, Trump also pledged to create a 'great computerized system' for air traffic control.) There's long been agreement that America's decrepit air traffic control infrastructure is in need of an overhaul, and indeed the FAA has been engaged in efforts to upgrade various systems for years. But upgrading a complicated mesh of systems and redundancies, while they are operational, is a complex task — and several of those efforts, including a major project called NextGen to switch from radar to satellite for guiding planes — have faced delays, cost overruns, and insufficient resources. One thing Duffy's plan doesn't contemplate: privatizing the air traffic control system, as some have suggested in the past. Duffy on Thursday called that a political matter that he has no intention of revisiting. Asked if the plan will be part of the GOP's reconciliation legislation, Duffy said he would leave that issue to Congress. 'How do they want to do this? They can take a look at the numbers and what they think it's gonna cost.' 'Whether it's part of the big, beautiful bill, or it comes in a different package, we do need all the money,' he said.
