Given the likelihood of new infrastructure spending being in the economic stimulus package, it’s important to focus on whether that spending will be done well, because that doesn’t always happen.

Back in August 2007 - before this blog was around to trumpet the news - we did a little release about what Congress was spending to repair the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis.

Before adjourning for its August recess early Sunday, Congress quickly passed a bill spending $250 million to repair the 1,907-foot I-35 bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, an expenditure of about $130,000 per foot. This is more than three times the cost-per-foot of Alaska’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.”

Under the bill, the federal government will bear the full cost of I-35 repairs. The quarter-billion-dollar spending measure raced through Congress in about two days.

According to the Department of Transportation, the collapsed I-35 bridge was 1,907 feet long (just over one-third of a mile) and rose 64 feet above the Mississippi River. Two-hundred fifty million dollars amounts to about $130,000 per foot to rebuild the bridge.

That’s not the kind of infrastructure spending we should hope for this time around.

“The good news is that the I-35 bridge is a bridge to somewhere,” Harper said, “but it could probably be rebuilt for under a hundred million. The I-35 bridge is a third of the height of the Bridge to Nowhere but three times the cost per foot.”

(So clever, Jim - a “bridge to somewhere”!)

Here’s the full release.

Dozens of press releases come out every day on some public policy issue or another. I picked one pretty much at random to write about a couple of months ago. It was an American Trucking Associations release touting the support of a professional truck driver for a piece of legislation. I thought that was a little gimmicky, but it’s far from the worst thing I’ve ever seen in public policy advocacy.

So up went a picture of Tony Sifford and a post about his support for some energy bill or other. (Gosh - remember when energy was the biggest issue going, and not government bailouts and the reeling economy? Those were the days - two months ago.)

Tragically, Tony was killed in an accident a month later.

I’ve been honored to see commenters on my post about his passing offering their condolences to his family and illustrating how Tony Sifford touched their lives. It’s a nice illustration of the value of every life and how we all rely on each other. Even a “random” truck driver from Hillsville, Virginia is a part of our community and someone who we’ll miss when he’s gone.

This would be a nice lesson for the people debating H.R. 6798 to remember. It’s a bill dealing with whether certain cancer diagnoses should be attributed to Agent Orange, and the people debating it right now are being needlessly cruel to one another.

Take a moment out, people, to remember your common bond with one another and the importance we have to one another - in ways you might not realize until it’s too late.

Late Friday, Congress passed H.R. 7110, a bill to make supplemental appropriations for job creation and preservation, infrastructure investment, and economic and energy assistance for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009.

The bill costs something over $500 per U.S. family, and it spends money on highway construction, unemployment benefits, Medicaid, and food stamps.

I do believe that this is the first time Congress has passed a supplemental spending bill for a given fiscal year even before that fiscal year has started. Very impressive . . .

What a shame. A fellow I featured in an early blog post here has passed away.

Tony Sifford was a driver for FedEx Ground out of Hillsville, Virginia, and he was involved in various good causes around trucking (most of which appear to be sponsored by the American Trucking Associations). He worked with ATA to support H.R. 6709, the National Conservation, Environment, and Energy Independence Act.

A commenter tonight on the post featuring Tony noted his recent death in an accident.

It’s an unfortunate tragedy. Condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues. We’re all worse off knowing we’ve lost this good man.

H.R. 5788, the Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace Act of 2008, would prohibit mobile voice communications on commercial airline flights.

Wait a second - what was the name of that bill? The Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace Act of 2008?

You don’t have to have spent your life playing Jumble to figure this one out. It’s the “HANG UP” Act!

Wow! THAT is clever! Too rich! (Ugh.)

Here’s the latest vote on H.R. 5788, the Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace Act of 2008. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill. And, hey, don’t be against it because of the name. Be against it because it’s not the federal government’s job to make people courteous on planes.

Yeah, I had never heard of him either, but the American Trucking Associations today announced its support for H.R. 6709, the National Conservation, Environment, and Energy Independence Act - and they brought along professional truck driver Tony Sifford!

Tony is a driver for FedEx Ground out of Hillsville, Virginia, and he’s involved in various good causes around trucking (most of which appear to be sponsored by the ATA). Tony looks like a nice guy.

And he joined Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas) at ATA’s National Truck Driving Championships in Houston, Texas - now that’s a good time! - to say good things about the bill.

According to the ATA, it calls for domestic oil drilling, tax incentives, and alternative energy research to bring down the price of fuel.

Tony Sifford is for it. How could you not be?

It’s an interesting commentary on policymaking that having a truck driver endorse a bill is supposed to tell us that the bill is good. I look to truck drivers for knowing how to drive a rig, where to get good grub on the road, and the trucking business, but - no disrespect to all the solid, professional truck drivers - I have no idea what this truck driver can contribute to our knowledge of the economics, science, or business of energy. (Though I might hear it from all the drivers debating the proposed TRUCC Act.)

Here’s the current vote on H.R. 6709, the National Conservation, Environment, and Energy Independence Act. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

“TWIC” stands for Transportation Worker Identification Credential. The TWIC card is a federal program that’s been floating around for a few years now.

Post-9/11, someone decided that if we knew who all the transportation workers were, our transportation would be more secure. That’s true in a small way, but it wouldn’t stop terrorists, it treats all transportation workers a little bit like criminals, and it represents huge bureaucratic hassles for small business people in particular.

How does all that come home to roost? Savannah Price tells us in the comments to S. 3377, the Small Marine Business and Fishing Guide Relief Act of 2008:

My Name is Savannnah Price I am 16 years old and i am a deckhand on a small charter boat in Juneau Alaska. My captain says if he must acept the TWIC card he will no longer be in the charter buisness. It would hurt me and a lot of our trust worthy clients if we were no longer in buiness. I know i am only 16 but it should say something when a 16 year belives in something she is very postionate about and someone is going to ruin that with a simple card. I dont see why we have to fix something that is not broken, we are doing fine know we dont NEED the TWIC card. Let us spend our time worrying about other things. Thank you for taking the time to read this i hopr you take my opinion into consideration. It would mean the world to a lot of people.

(It’s times like these when you get a little bit proud for running a Web site like this because you’re doing a little bit to get young people like Savannah participating in our democracy.)

S. 3377 is designed to relieve certain small business merchant mariners from some of the TWIC card obligations. Makes sense in Juneau, Alaska, which is probably not a terrorist target. And it might be that relief like this should be extended more broadly.

Here’s the current vote on S. 3377, the Small Marine Business and Fishing Guide Relief Act of 2008. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

The Congressional Budget Office came out with a cost estimate today for S. 3297, the Advancing America’s Priorities Act, which has also been called the “Coburn Omnibus.” It combines 36 pieces of federal legislation into one.

Yesterday, adding up all the pieces of the Coburn Omnibus, we came up with about $65 per U.S. family. When we crunch the CBO estimate into its per-family cost, we get just over $70.00.

If you’re curious, more on our methodology is here.

What do people think of all this? Here’s the current vote on S. 3297. As always, you can click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma didn’t come to Washington, D.C. to grow the government.

A long time critic of federal spending and power, he has made prolific use of “holds” to prevent legislation he doesn’t like from moving forward.

Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has reached his wit’s end. He has cobbled together into one bill a long list of measures that Coburn has been working to slow or stop. He’s hoping to roll over Senator Coburn and move them all forward. The bill is S. 3297, the Advancing America’s Priorities Act. But the nickname it has gotten is the “Coburn Omnibus.”

Majority Leader Reid is expected to try to bring the bill to the Senate floor later this week.

We have done our best to figure out which bills have been rolled into the Coburn Omnibus, using a copy of the bill he posted on his Web site. Thirty-six bills are listed below. The last would authorize the construction of a greenhouse in Suitland, Maryland.

Coburn has reportedly said the bills in the Coburn Omnibus would create 77 new federal programs. By our count, passage of the Coburn Omnibus would spend just under $65 per U.S. family, though six of the bills do not have cost estimates.

[UPDATE: Staff for Senator Coburn have noted to me that they count 35 programs the bill would create. The 77 number reported on FoxNews.com is the number of total programs Coburn has been holding up. Our count of 36 comes from treating an ocean exploration bill and an ocean mapping bill as separate.]

HEALTHCARE PROVISIONS

• S. 1382, the ALS Registry Act - $0.62
• S. 1183, the Christoper and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act - $0.85
• S. 999, the Stroke Treatment and Ongoing Prevention Act
• H.R. 20, the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act - $0.16
• S. 1117, the Vision Care for Kids Act of 2008
• S. 1810, the Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act - $0.17

JUDICIARY PROVISIONS

• H.R. 5524, the Reconnecting Homeless Youth Act of 2008
• S. 535, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act of 2007 - $0.58
• S. 2304, the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2008 - $4.34
• H.R. 4120, the Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act of 2007
• H.R. 4136, the Enhancing the Effective Prosecution of Child Pornography Act of 2007
• S. 1210, the Drug Endangered Children Act of 2007 - $0.18
• S. 1079, the Star-Spangled Banner and War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission Act - $0.03
• S. 1738, the PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008 (Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007) - $4.93

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS PROVSIONS

• H.R. 2964, the Captive Primate Safety Act - $0.15
• S. 2707, the Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network Continuing Authorization Act - $0.04
• S. 2844, the Beach Protection Act of 2008 - $2.56
• S. 496, the Appalachian Regional Development Act Amendments of 2008

FOREIGN RELATIONS PROVISIONS

• H.R. 1469, the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act of 2008 - $3.76
• H.R. 1084, the Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act of 2008 - $5.75
• H.R. 2798, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation Reauthorization of Act of 2008 - $0.66
• S. 2020, the Tropical Forest and Coral Conservation Reauthorization Act of 2008 - $0.65
• H.R. 1678, the Torture Victims Relief Reauthorization Act of 2008 - $0.93
• H.R. 3320, the Support for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews Act of 2008 - $0.05

COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION PROVISIONS

• S. 1492, the Broadband Data Improvement Act - $1.85
• S. 675, the Training for Realtime Writers Act of 2007 - $0.62
• H.R. 3352, the Hydrographic Services Improvement Act Amendments of 2008 - $5.92
• H.R. 1834, the NOAA Undersea Research Program Act of 2008 (National Ocean Exploration Program Act) - $2.36
• H.R. 2400, the Ocean and Coastal Mapping Integration Act - $1.03
• H.R. 5618, the National Sea Grant College Program Amendments Act of 2008 - $2.69
• S. 950, the Integrated Coastal and Ocean Observation System Act of 2008 - $6.36
• H.R. 4174, the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act of 2008 - $0.70

HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS PROVISIONS

• S. 1446, the National Capital Transportation Amendments Act of 2008 - $10.40
• H.R. 390, the Preservation of Records of Servitude, Emancipation, and Post-Civil War Reconstruction Act - $0.12
• S. 3175, the Predisaster Hazard Mitigation Act of 2008 - $6.18

RULES AND ADMINISTRATION PROVISIONS

• H.R. 5492, To authorize the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution to construct a greenhouse facility at its museum support facility in Suitland, Maryland, and for other purposes - $0.02