Federal and Amtrak officials and state officials from New York and New Jersey announced Nov. 11, 2015 that they have reached an agreement on funding commitments and a governance structure that will allow the long-awaited, critically important $20 billion Gateway Tunnel Project to construct two new rail tunnels under the Hudson River to move forward.
The U.S. Senate on August 5, 2015 officially confirmed the appointment of Marie Therese Dominguez as Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). Dominguez, who began serving as Administrator on June 22, was first nominated by President Barack Obama for the role on May 29.
The final spec for the now-official DOT-117 (TC-117 in Canada) non-pressurized tank car adopts the most demanding of the technical requirements first offered for comment in the notice of rulemaking: jacketed and thermally insulated shells of 9/16-inch steel, full-height half-inch-thick head shields, sturdier, re-closeable pressure relief valves and rollover protection for top fittings.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) is making $500 million available for the seventh round of the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) competitive grant program.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced Friday, Feb. 20, 2015 a proposed rule “to increase oversight responsibilities of State Safety Oversight Agencies (SSOAs) by replacing the existing outdated regulatory framework with one designed to better evaluate the effectiveness of a rail transit agency’s system safety program.”
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced May 30 that that the USDOT “has begun the process of fulfilling Amtrak’s request for $185 million in Hurricane Sandy Relief funding.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation, through the Federal Railroad Administration, has awarded a $7 million TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant to the State of Oregon to support a $9.4 million project that will rehabilitate and reopen a 296-mile stretch of the Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad (a Genesee & Wyoming property).