Ah, is that the sweet smell of cooperation?

The headline isn’t mine. It’s from a story in today’s Bond Buyer  from Audrey Dutton in the newspaper’s Washington Bureau.

According to the story

The Obama administration is working with Congress on a multi-year transportation bill that it expects will cost between $400 billion to $500 billion, Transportation Department Secretary Ray LaHood said at a conference here yesterday.

“President Obama wants a robust, comprehensive transportation bill that meets the needs of America. The problem is that project, that bill, costs between four or five hundred billion dollars,” he said at the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting.

We knowthis is happening in a distant sort of way and LaHood doesn’t give us moch new but according to Dutton “LaHood’s statements came amid reports of the White House cobbling together its own multi-year bill at the request of Congress. Asked about that, the DOT secretary would only tell reporters, “we’re going to work with Congress” on drafting a bill.”

Hmmm. Is this actually a break in the ice and is there actually some serious cooperative work going on? Check out the rest of the story. Somehow Secretary LaHood manages to fly a whole flock of trial balloons at the same time.