Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has put a “hold” on the nomination of Regina McCarthy to head the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air and Radiation. The Environment and Public Works Com- mittee cleared McCarthy’s nomi- nation on April 23, but Barrasso is concerned about her support for EPA’s recent finding that greenhouse gases may pose a public-health danger. The action blocks a floor vote on McCarthy.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) has added funds for Dept. of Defense hospitals to a 2009 supplemental spending bill. The $94.2-billion measure, which Obey’s panel was to take up on May 7, includes $3.2 billion for military construction, $900 million more than the White House sought. Obey says most of the boost is for hospital projects. The $3.2 billion also includes the $263 million that the White House requested to speed up hospital projects in Bethesda, Md., and Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Under DOD’s base-closure plans, those facilities would replace the current Walter Reed Army Medical Center in

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) says he plans to soon unveil a new, multiyear surface transportation bill and predicts that it will move to the House floor in early June. Oberstar declined to disclose the amount of funding that the measure would authorize. An April 24 American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials-American Public Transportation Association report says highway capital spending by all government levels needs to reach $132 billion to $166 billion a year by 2015, depending on traffic growth. That compares with $78.7 billion spent in 2006. The report pegs annual transit capital

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have released a draft plan for the restoration of the Hudson-Raritan Estuary that they hope will lead to a more coordinated effort to remediate the heavily polluted area. Released on April 14, the two-volume Comprehensive Restoration Plan (CRP) provides a framework for restoring the estuary. Corps officials say the plan represents a consensus view of how the estuary—roughly defined as the waters and wetlands within a 25-mile radius of the Statue of Liberty—should be restored. Sources say the plan, the result of a 1999

Sen. Arlen Specter’s April 28 announcement that he has switched from the GOP to the Democratic Party will give Democrats a filibuster-proof 60-vote Senate majority, if Al Franken retains his tight lead in the unsettled Minnesota race. Specter, of Pennsylvania, will run as a Democrat in 2010. He was facing an uphill battle in the 2010 GOP primary against conservative Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Specter says the Republican Party has shifted far to the right of where it was when he was elected in 1980. “I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” he said.

The $33.2-billion price tag for implementing the Pentagon’s current Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round is 48% higher than the Dept. of Defense initially anticipated, says Wayne Arny, deputy undersecretary of defense. The factors behind the increase include the effect of inflation and the construction of additional facilities, Arny told the House military construction appropriations subcommittee at an April 22 hearing. For the Army, 2009 is the largest year of the current BRAC round, with 96 contracts slated to be awarded, said Keith Eastin, an assistant Army secretary. Fiscal 2010 will be the current closure-and-realignment round’s final year. Past years’

The Obama administration has extended the deadline until June 30 for implementation of mandatory E-Verify use by federal contractors to determine employment eligibility of their new hires. The policy was set to go into effect on Jan. 15. “The extension provides the administration an adequate opportunity to review the entire rule prior to its applicability to federal contractors and subcontractors,” says the Dept. of Homeland Security.

While environmental groups are cheering the Environmental Protection Agency’s April 17 announcement that it has determined that greenhouse gases could pose a threat to public health and welfare, critics charge that using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions could prove costly. “Trying to regulate [greenhouse emissions] under the Clean Air Act is going to add costs and delays to transportation projects,” says Nick Goldstein, American Road and Transportation Builders Association assistant general counsel and director of regulatory affairs. WAXMAN EPA’s “endangerment” finding, which is subject to a 60-day comment period before it becomes final, is not a formal

Administration officials on April 16 outlined plans to distribute more than $3.3 billion in smart-grid- technology development grants and an additional $615 million for smart-grid storage through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The grants will range from $500,000 to $20 million for smart-grid applications and $100,000 to $5 million for grid monitoring devices.“We need an upgraded electrical grid to take full advantage of the vast renewable resources in this country,” said Vice President Joe Biden. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said administration of- ficials will hold a meeting in Washington, D.C., in May to discuss the development of industrywide standards

A new study from the North American Electric Reliability Corp., the U.S. electric-utility watchdog group, finds that the nation’s increasing reliance on renewable-energy power sources will require policymakers to clear the way for updating the nation’s transmissions system. NERC says adding high levels of wind, solar and ocean energy, deemed “variable generation” for their intermittent characteristics, will require “significant transmission additions and reinforcements” to ensure grid reliability. NERC projects that more than 145,000 MW of new variable resources will be added to the country’s bulk power system with-in 10 years. Denise Bode, CEO of American Wind Energy Association ,praises NERC’s