LaHood fields stimulus team

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has created a team at the Department of Transportation (DOT) aimed at ensuring President Obama’s proposed economic-recovery funding is made available for transportation infrastructure projects -- and that project spending is monitored and transparent.

Known as the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) team and comprised of officials from across the department’s operating administrations and offices, the team will identify and prioritize key highway, bridge, transit, rail, aviation and intermodal spending, LaHood said. It will also develop reporting standards to track money as it is spent.

“We created the TIGER team to make sure that DOT’s portion of recovery funding goes out to states and localities as quickly as possible in order to immediately create jobs and strengthen our economy and transportation systems,” LaHood said.