NATIONAL NEWS

Bloomberg: Obama to Cite Public Works, Energy for Jobs Growth
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJPbwhVL0gq8&pos=9
President Barack Obama today will propose upgrading infrastructure, promoting home-energy efficiency and helping small businesses as ways to spur job growth, an administration official said...The panel, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, in a session Dec. 4 also backed creating a so-called national infrastructure bank to fund large-scale projects with national or regional impact. Obama included $25 billion over five years in his fiscal 2010 budget to capitalize the fund.  Obama’s biggest fight may be in using money from TARP, which was created to shore up financially troubled banks. The Treasury Department has said the program will cost about $200 billion less than an earlier estimate as banks repay bailout funding.

New York Times: Obama Announces New Jobs Programs
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/obama-announces-new-jobs-programs/
President Obama on Tuesday will announce three proposals intended to turn around the nation’s beleaguered job market, including strengthening investments to small businesses that have struggled to expand because of the credit crunch in America...The president also will call for increasing the investment in infrastructure through building and modernizing highways, railways, bridges and tunnels.

Marketplace: Infrastructure would spur job creation
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/12/08/am-job-creation/
Jobs creation and infrastructure will be two pivotal topics of President Obama's speech later today, but the White House is trying to tamp down expectations for a silver-bullet solution. Ashley Milne-Tyte offers this preview.

New York Times (Brooks): An Innovation Agenda
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/opinion/08brooks.html
...Third, rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. Abraham Lincoln spent the first half of his career promoting canals and railroads. Today, the updated needs are just as great, and there’s widespread agreement that decisions should be made by a National Infrastructure Bank, not pork-seeking politicians.

The Hill: Two-week sprint
http://thehill.com/opinion/editorials/71015-two-week-sprint
With the House and Senate looking to adjourn by Dec. 18, many questions will be answered in the next several days...Player of the Week: Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.)  Despite resistance from the Senate and the White House, Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) has made the case throughout this year for Congress to pass a $500 billion transportation reauthorization measure.  President Barack Obama and leaders of the upper chamber, wary of moving another bill with a hefty price tag, told the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee: Let’s wait until after the 2010 elections.  Oberstar refused to bend, but even though he had the support of transportation groups, the political winds earlier this year suggested he was wasting his time. How would he overcome opposition from his president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)?

Baltimore Sun: Repairing an economic hole
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bal-ed.infrastructure08dec08,0,5226063.story
...Spending more on infrastructure, on the other hand, is the type of policy that labor unions and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce can support wholeheartedly. Both have been critical of the federal government in recent months for failing to invest enough in transportation, with the chamber criticizing Congress for its lack of "political will to raise the investments it will take to build America."

STATE NEWS

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/07/financial/f091714S72.DTL&type=business
Legislation that would clear the way for creating a commuter rail system in central Florida zipped through the House at bullet-train speed Monday, but it was headed for an uncertain fate in the Senate.

Seattle Times: Spokane Transit Authority looking at trolleys
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010445703_apwaspokanemasstransit.html
The Spokane Transit Authority is using $360,000 in federal and state grant money for a study of a possible trolley or streetcar system in downtown Spokane.