WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Dozens of infrastructure projects could qualify for expedited treatment under a White House plan to create jobs by cutting through regulatory red tape that critics say is holding up important initiatives.

President Barack Obama last month ordered Interior, Agriculture, Housing, Transportation and Commerce Department officials to identify by Friday up to three big projects each that could merit faster environmental approvals and other permits. Funding must already be arranged or identified.

Obama is facing a tough re-election fight next year in the face of a stubborn 9.1 percent unemployment rate. Infrastructure projects, which can help state and local economies, are a key part of his job creation strategy.

Administration officials would not discuss proposals while they were under review, but transportation and construction groups say there are at minimum 50 projects in the permit process that could qualify for faster treatment.

Most are winding their way through a federal, state and local maze that often takes several years and can last between 15 and 20 years for the biggest proposals.

The $2.4 billion Wilson Bridge project linking suburban Maryland and Virginia along the I-95 highway was built under the nose of the U.S. government and took 18 years from proposal to ribbon-cutting in 2006. Boston’s notorious “Big Dig” tunnel/highway project took 30 years from conception to completion.

“It’s just the whole process itself. The way we build things in this country ensures that it will take decades,” said Mark Policinski, executive director and chief executive of the Ohio Kentucky Indiana Regional Council of Governments.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are willing to try and find more money for highway and bridge construction and transit upgrades as part of long-term transportation funding legislation.

John Mica, chairman of the Transportation Committee, recently received a commitment from leadership to help identify new sources of funding to try to ensure that budgeting over a six-year period would at least meet today’s spending levels, a senior congressional aide told Reuters.

Mica was not available to comment.

House Speaker John Boehner has said infrastructure is one area where Republicans and Democrats may find common ground in a bitter partisan climate over spending and deficit reduction.

Cash-strapped states are eager for details on what Congress might be willing to spend on road and bridge construction with the current flow of federal dollars only authorized by a temporary law through March.

The Transportation Department devotes about $50 billion annually to transportation construction. But revenue to fund those projects is generated by gasoline tax receipts, which have been declining steadily in recent years due to high pump prices, more fuel efficient cars and a tough economy.

Congress has had to rescue highway transportation programs with separate multi-billion-dollar cash infusions, something Republicans say is no longer an option.

WASHINGTON, Sept 27 (Reuters) – The Obama administration is expected to push back the release of the most ambitious proposal ever for automakers to improve fuel efficiency of their passenger cars, sport utility vehicles and pickups.

The Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency intended to put out the draft plan for model years 2017-25 for industry and public comment by the end of this week. But several sources with knowledge of the matter said it would not be rolled out for a month or possibly longer.

Administration officials had no immediate comment.

An agreement between U.S. and overseas automakers, the administration and California in July would require the fleet to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, equivalent to a 5 percent increase in annual efficiency.

The deal softens the impact for production of light trucks, like pickups and SUVs — a mainstay of U.S. auto manufacturers General Motors Co (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Chrysler, which is run by Italy’s Fiat (FIA.MI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The administration would with a short delay remain on track to meet its deadline for issuing final rules next July, five years before they take effect. That timeline gives industry room to plan its vehicle mix and make any production or technology changes.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the EPA are jointly writing the regulation based on the July agreement with auto companies, environmental interests and the state of California, which has important influence because of its huge market, its political standing with the Democratic administration and its environmental leadership role.

Sept 26 (Reuters) – To engineers, the Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) 787 is made from reinforced carbon composites. To everyone else, the Dreamliner is the world’s first plastic jet.

Boeing’s departure from traditionally reliable aluminum construction was driven by airlines demanding a big plane that requires less fuel to operate and is less costly to maintain.

Common in military aircraft for some time and in a range of everyday products from soup ladles to golf clubs, composites are showing up more frequently on commercial planes.

Some Boeing 777s have composite tails and its European rival, Airbus (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), has used composites for years on its planes, including the superjumbo A380 that first flew in 2007. Its rival to the 787, the A350, is due to be mostly composite.

But Boeing has made the substantial business and scientific bet first. Composite materials comprise 50 percent of the Dreamliner, including the huge, single-piece fuselage barrel that will seat about 250 passengers and wings holding thousands of gallons of jet fuel.

“It’s gutsy,” said David Roylance, a materials engineering expert at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who said designers are comfortable with composites although the scale of use on the 787 has yet to be seen on a large commercial plane.

EFFICIENCY DEMANDS

WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) – The biggest U.S. corporations urged Republicans on Thursday to abandon plans to strip $1.5 billion from a government loan program supporting efforts to make more fuel-efficient cars and trucks.

The credit subsidy has become a surprise flash point in stalled congressional efforts to pass short-term spending legislation to keep the government operating beyond Sept. 30.

A letter addressed to all members of the House of Representatives from the Chamber of Commerce signaled intensified lobbying around the auto issue with Republicans scrambling to find enough votes to pass their spending plan.

The letter said U.S. business “recognizes that Congress must make difficult but necessary choices” on finances. But the group stressed that the Energy Department Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program had helped create jobs in a “sector of the economy critical to the nation’s recovery.”

Additionally, the Chamber of Commerce “urges you to bear in mind” that the loan program promotes manufacturing and is an “important component of America’s energy security.”

The lobbying push also included manufacturing, supplier and automaker trade groups.

Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Nissan Motor (7211.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), start-ups and other companies have been awarded more than $9 billion in loans to retool factories and develop technologies for making more gasoline/electric hybrids and electric vehicles.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate approved legislation on Thursday to temporarily renew funding for airport and highway improvement projects, averting threatened shutdowns of both programs and job cuts affecting thousands of construction and other workers.

The chamber approved the bill, 92-6, that conveyed legal authority for the government to extend the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Department programs through January and March respectively.

The stop-gap action also allows the government to continue collecting related airline ticket and auto gasoline taxes to fund the trust fund accounts that pay for infrastructure improvements and are under financial pressure.

Federal airport and highway and transit construction funding remains at current levels. The FAA spends more than $3 billion a year on airport improvements and the transportation department funnels $42 billion annually to states for road upgrades, figures show.

“This is a good day,” said Barbara Boxer, Democratic chairman of the Senate Public Works Committee, which oversees the highway programs. “We showed we can work together.”

Boxer helped forge a deal with Republican senators Tom Coburn and Rand Paul on their concerns over “wasteful spending” that averted a last-minute obstacle to final passage with the FAA funding authority set to expire on Friday.

Congress has struggled in recent years to craft long-term aviation and highway funding bills, requiring a string of temporary renewals to keep those programs operating.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The House of Representatives, stepping into a labor dispute that has become a political issue, approved legislation on Thursday to limit enforcement powers of a federal labor board in its complaint against Boeing Co.

The Republican-sponsored measure targeting the National Labor Relations Board is unlikely to be enacted due to opposition in the Democratic-led Senate, which is not expected to bring any similar measure up for a vote.

The labor relations panel has sued Boeing, saying the aircraft manufacturer’s decision to move assembly jobs for its 787 Dreamliner to non-union South Carolina was meant to retaliate against members of the International Association of Machinists, or IAM, for a previous strike at its plant in Everett, Washington.

The House-passed legislation would prohibit the board from ordering companies to close a factory or relocate or transfer jobs under any circumstances — a possible outcome if Boeing were to lose the labor case.

Boeing said its decision was based on sound business practices and it had not violated any laws in opening the $750 million South Carolina plant in June that will employ 1,000 people.

“We have said consistently that the complaint is groundless and legally unsupportable,” Boeing spokesman Tim Neale said. “We continue to believe the issue would be best addressed by the NLRB withdrawing its complaint.”

Boeing did not endorse the House bill.

WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives, stepping into a labor dispute that has become a political issue, approved legislation on Thursday to limit enforcement powers of a federal labor board in its complaint against Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The Republican-sponsored measure targeting the National Labor Relations Board is unlikely to be enacted due to opposition in the Democratic-led Senate, which is not expected to bring any similar measure up for a vote.

The labor relations panel has sued Boeing, saying the aircraft manufacturer’s decision to move assembly jobs for its 787 Dreamliner to non-union South Carolina was meant to retaliate against members of the International Association of Machinists, or IAM, for a previous strike at its plant in Everett, Washington.

The House-passed legislation would prohibit the board from ordering companies to close a factory or relocate or transfer jobs under any circumstances — a possible outcome if Boeing were to lose the labor case.

Boeing said its decision was based on sound business practices and it had not violated any laws in opening the $750 million South Carolina plant in June that will employ 1,000 people.

“We have said consistently that the complaint is groundless and legally unsupportable,” Boeing spokesman Tim Neale said. “We continue to believe the issue would be best addressed by the NLRB withdrawing its complaint.”

Boeing did not endorse the House bill.

WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – A U.S. senator’s objection to federal spending on bike paths and scenic projects threatened on Wednesday to hold up action by Congress that would avert shutdowns of aviation and highway programs and a lapse of gasoline taxes.

The maneuver by Republican Tom Coburn raised the prospect of Congress failing for the second time this summer to meet its own deadline for fully funding transportation programs, which in recent years have been kept alive by short-term funding renewals.

Partisan gridlock over a different issue caused the Federal Aviation Administration’s last short-term financing law to lapse in July, leading to a two-week shutdown of airport improvement projects.

Congress eventually approved the measure, but not before 4,000 FAA employees were furloughed and thousands of construction jobs idled.

Current FAA airport funding expires on Friday, while the law authorizing the U.S. government to reimburse states for road and transit construction upgrades and collect gasoline taxes — which fund those highway programs — expires Sept. 30.

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, urged Coburn “to reconsider how this gridlock harms real people” and warned that jobs “will be eliminated if we don’t get this thing passed.”

House and Senate leaders struck a deal last week to continue the FAA airport programs through January and the Transportation Department’s highway and gas tax funds through March while lawmakers try to craft long term legislation covering all three.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Defense contractors launched a broad lobbying campaign on Wednesday to drum up public support for holding the line on U.S. military spending cuts.

Alarmed at the prospect of Congress dictating steep new reductions on top of more than $350 billion in cuts already in the pipeline from Pentagon streamlining, contractors based their urgent appeal on economic as well as national security grounds.

Industry lobbyists are highlighting the role of small business in aerospace production and asking the general public to contact lawmakers directly to support their position.

“Our position is: no more,” Marion Blakey, chief executive of the Aerospace Industries Association trade group, told a news conference on the stepped-up lobbying effort. “Defense has been cut to the bone. We are there already.”

Boeing Co; engine maker Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp; and other companies under the AIA umbrella are looking to create general awareness about the potential impact of extended spending reductions.

A congressional “super committee” on deficit reduction is trying to find at least $1.2 trillion in budget savings over the next decade.

The worst-case scenario coming out of the panel by year’s end — if it cannot reach agreement on additional cuts — would be an additional defense cut of up to $600 billion over the same period.