advertisement

---

On Monday, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure leaders John Mica (R-Fla.), John Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) and Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) called for greater transparency in the Obama administration’s process for awarding stimulus funds for high-speed and intercity passenger-rail projects and TIGER grants.

The congressmen’s comments followed the Monday release of two Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports, which concluded that the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) could improve their processes for awarding grants by providing better documentation of each agencies’ decision-making.

Both reports found insufficient documentation for USDOT’s and FRA’s selections of rail projects for $8 billion in stimulus funding and $1.5 billion in Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants.

“The rationale for the administration’s awards of billions of dollars under a failed high-speed rail program remains shrouded in mystery,” said Mica, who chairs the transportation committee, in a prepared statement. “Billions of dollars in rejected grants have been returned by recipient states, and it is critical that there be transparency for why these projects were selected in the first place and why any future projects will be selected.”

Duncan, who chairs the House Highways and Transit Subcommittee, called on the administration, USDOT and FRA to be more open about the TIGER grant selection process.

“GAO found that the administration’s project selections for $1.5 billion TIGER stimulus grants also lacked transparency and now the president is asking for $2 billion more,” Duncan said, referring to the president’s 2012 budget proposal. “We should be given a full accounting of how stimulus funds were allocated.”

Shuster, who chairs the House Railroads Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee, echoed those sentiments.

“We are under considerable budgetary pressure to cut spending and do more with fewer dollars,” he said. “On high-speed rail funding, the GAO report correctly suggests that the administration has been cloudy in its funding decisions.”