Critical Path

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The nominee to be the next chief of the Corps of Engineers got a generally positive reception from Senate Environment and Public Works Committee members at a May 25 hearing.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), a key player in transportation funding legislation, is looking for "creative" ways to supplement the ailing Highway Trust Fund.

As the Appropriations Committee starts work on fiscal 2012 spending bills, lawmakers are aiming for cuts in non-defense areas.

Hugh Pratt isn't kidding when he says his idea for a safety tool was an act of God.

The department is downplaying the document, obtained by a transportation newsletter, calling it  "an early working draft" that "does not represent the views of the President."

Passing through Tokyo recently I had a fleeting brush with literacy in Japanese

The Japanese are working to make their country ever more resilient to disasters. They have learned that while it may not always be possible to prevent disasters, their impact can be lessened by engineering infrastructure to survive. 

I am sure this is not difficult…once you figure it out.    When I awoke before dawn on April 21, there still were neither rooms nor cars to be rented in Sendai, Japan. But I had an appointment in that city at the end of the day and I was going anyway.  

I was told the first of seven teams the ASCE is deploying in the next few weeks is focused on the tsunami. I proposed to report on the process the team will use to gather perishable evidence at this stage of the investigation.