: News
Only Hours Left For Metro To Finalize Funding Agreement
By David Schultz
Time is running out for Metro. It needs state and federal officials to approve a funding plan, or it may default on a contract for rail cars.
Metro's funding plan has been in doubt ever since Virginia threatened to withhold its share unless it could get more authority over the transit agency.
Metro needs to finalize that $3 billion plan by the close of the business day today so it can honor its contract to purchase the new rail cars - a major safety upgrade.
Sean Connaughton, Virginia's secretary of transportation, says he thought he came to an agreement with Metro's Board of Directors this morning.
"Unfortunately, now they've made modifications to it and we have to go back and make sure that we can live with those modifications," he says.
And if they can't live with them? "I don't know," Connaughton says, after a long pause.
If Virginia does agree to the changes, the agreement would then go to the Federal Transit Administration for final approval.
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The prize is sometimes called the "Nobel Prize for food and agriculture." And this year's winners include Monsanto executive Robert Fraley, a pioneer in genetically engineered crops. If there's a single person who personifies the company's controversial role in American agriculture, it's probably Fraley.Meet The New Governor: Sharply Partisan And Upwardly Mobile
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