With help from Kathryn A. Wolfe, Lauren Gardner and Tanya Snyder

SMALL DOC, BIG IDEAS: President Donald Trump’s two-pager for DOT in his fiscal 2018 budget outline released Thursday may have been short (and short on details), but it punches above its weight — primarily with the inclusion of support for shifting air traffic control away from the FAA. Even House Transportation Chairman Bill Shuster told your MT host he was “very pleasantly surprised” by it, and he blasted out a statement saying he hoped to get his bill to Trump’s desk this year.

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FORCING ACTION: The timing may be coincidental, but we couldn’t help but wonder if the budget proposal ended up forcing the General Aviation Manufacturers Association off the sidelines. GAMA — which has opposed prior efforts to shift the aviation system away from fuel taxes in favor of usage fees, but has maintained a Switzerland-like neutrality so far in the debate over an air traffic control overhaul — panned the proposal Thursday afternoon as potentially creating “negative impacts” for a host of issues, and suggested the insistence on including it in an FAA reauthorization bill is gumming up other priorities, such as changes to aircraft certification, our Kathryn A. Wolfe reports for Pros.

THE UPTAKE: Trump’s support for the broad outlines of what Shuster has proposed for air traffic control is without question a shot in the arm for Shuster and the airlines that want to see it happen. But the reality is the same constituencies in both chambers of Congress that spelled doom for the bill last year are still around, and still appear to have the same concerns, so Trump will need a full-court press to really bring people along, and it remains to be seen whether he’s willing to invest that kind of political capital.

Shot to the heart: Our Lauren Gardner caught up with top House DOT appropriator Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who didn’t take too kindly to the proposal, saying it would give “a board made up of corporations the ability to tax,” which he said “is something that gives a lot of us heartache.” Read more in our story for Pros here.

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“So the map says, ‘You are here.’ Waltzing in a garbage pile. Sweating like a weather vane. Coughing thunder, sneezing rain.” (h/t Indie88)

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THE TRAIN LINE THAT UNITED THE TWIN CITIES: For the first time in over 60 years, St. Paul and Minneapolis successfully created a new train line connecting the two cities. The latest installment of POLITICO Magazine's "What Works” series explores the story of how Twin Cities leaders accomplished this major feat and exceeded ridership forecasts, revitalized stretches of car-dominated thoroughfare and advanced the city’s most economically vulnerable working-class immigrants. Read more. Photo gallery.

BIPARTISAN SIDE-EYE: Trump’s blueprint, which calls for reducing DOT’s discretionary spending by 13 percent, was no winner with either Democratic or Republican lawmakers. It proposes cutting off federal funding for long-distance Amtrak routes, only letting money for New Starts go to projects that already have full funding grant agreements, and stripping the Essential Air Service program and TIGER of funding.

Head-shaking from both sides: Democrats, like Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and John Delaney (D-Md.), predictably slammed the president for suggesting cuts at DOT while at the same time promising to upgrade infrastructure across the country. And Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, said “there are many items that are going nowhere in the Senate,” including “mystifying cuts to TSA, slashed funding for roads and rails or scrapping our nation’s air traffic control system.” But Republicans weren’t very pleased either, with Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the former House Appropriations chairman, calling the proposed cuts “draconian, careless and counterproductive.”

Not going to fly: As our Tanya Snyder reports for Pros: “While eliminating waste and cutting spending are popular Republican talking points, and authorizing committees have at times suggested drastic cuts to Amtrak, urban transit and the EAS program, they have typically not been successful. The resistance to cuts that would impact rural America will be especially fierce in the Senate, even among Republicans.” Even Shuster told MT that he doesn’t “agree” with all of Trump’s proposals, including eliminating EAS, a program he described as “a vital link for rural America.”

DOCS OF THE DAY: A memo from Democratic staff to House T&I Dems giving an abridged version of Trump’s budget blueprint. A list of long-distance Amtrak services. A list of New Starts, Small Starts and Core Capacity projects across the country. And a list of Essential Air Service communities in Alaska and other states. Expect Democrats to use this information when attacking Trump’s budget proposal going forward.

MULVANEY: TRUMP STILL COMMITTED TO INFRASTRUCTURE: The DOT line items “do not mean the president is changing his commitment to infrastructure,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters Thursday. “What we’re saying is, ‘Look, for years and years we have built infrastructure like this and it doesn’t work very well,’” Mulvaney said. “So what we’re doing now is we’re taking it out of the discretionary budget and we’re going to move it into the larger infrastructure plan this summer.”

Third on the list: He added that “the infrastructure program is something we’ve just recently started. It won’t probably come until summer or maybe even early fall. We have to do Obamacare repeal and replace first, then tax reform second. That leaves infrastructure probably third, which may come after the August recess in Congress.”

** A message from American Public Transportation Association: Public transportation is a vital part of America’s infrastructure. In small towns and large cities, it creates jobs, increases property values, and stimulates economic growth. 87% of public transit trips directly benefit the economy by getting people to work and to local businesses. Let’s prioritize investment in transportation infrastructure. Learn more at apta.com/InvestNow **

CHAO SAYS SIMMER DOWN: In a DOT blog post, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said Trump’s skinny budget “addresses the department’s discretionary programs, which make up about one-quarter of the department’s total resources.”

A ‘more complete picture’ to come: “These proposed savings are largely geared towards future program investments, so they will not have an immediate direct impact on our DOT colleagues,” Chao said. “This is just the beginning of the budget process, not the end. We will see the more complete picture when OMB releases its final FY2018 budget in May, and as the president’s infrastructure initiative takes shape.” She added that the outline unveiled Thursday “preserves the ongoing safety programs at the heart of our department’s mission.”

TRANSIT WOES: The budget proposal would deal a huge blow to transit proponents waiting for federal funding deals to come through for large-scale capital projects. In one corner: The Gateway Program, the federal-state compact to go halfsies on billions of dollars’ worth of bridge and tunnel upgrades to passenger rail infrastructure through New Jersey and New York.

A letdown for project partners: “DOT accepted the Portal North Bridge and the Hudson Tunnel Project, which comprise the first phase of the Gateway Program, into FTA's New Starts grant program last summer,” Lauren writes. “Project partners had hoped that the Portal North Bridge, which is further along in the review process, would be included in DOT’s recommendation for the fiscal 2018 budget. Instead, the budget proposes to eliminate future full funding grant agreements provided under New Starts to shift the cost burden onto the localities hosting transit projects.”

Maryland project would also be on the chopping block: Another project that would see federal dollars dry up if the budget proposal were enacted is the Purple Line in Maryland. That could unspool a $5.6 billion public-private partnership — the type of financing scheme the administration says it wants to see more of nationwide — that the Maryland Transit Administration signed nearly a year ago, The Washington Post reports.

CALLING FOR AN ARMY CORPS CUT: Trump’s skinny budget also proposes a 17 percent cut for the Army Corps of Engineers, Pro Energy’s Annie Snider reports. “Both Republican and Democratic administrations tend to low-ball their requests for the Army Corps, the agency responsible for building and operating the nation's ports, levees, and inland waterways systems, trusting that congressional appropriators will restore the funding as they almost always do,” Annie writes.

AND ICYMI: The budget proposal includes a nearly 7 percent increase for the Department of Homeland Security’s discretionary spending. As Lauren reports, it recommends “reducing funding for the Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response program, which the administration says ‘achieves few federal law enforcement priorities,’ and getting rid of TSA grants to state and local law enforcement agencies for ‘patrols that should already be a high priority’ for them. … The budget also suggests raising TSA’s passenger security fee ‘to recover 75 percent of the cost of TSA aviation security operations’ — a proposal the airline industry is likely to fight.”

INHOFE DOUBTFUL ABOUT AN INFRASTRUCTURE BILL THIS YEAR: Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) isn’t so sure Congress will check an infrastructure package off its to-do list in 2017. “I suspect it won’t happen this year,” the former Senate EPW chairman told Pro Energy’s Anthony Adragna in an interview this week. Inhofe, who now chairs EPW’s transportation and infrastructure subcommittee and sits on the Commerce Committee, also said he met with Trump back in early October at Trump Tower, and transportation policy briefly came up. “We didn’t talk that much about transportation other than the fact that we just passed the largest [surface transportation bill] since 1998 and that may not be at the front end of his reforms,” Inhofe said.

Not crazy about those proposed cuts: Anthony also asked Inhofe whether Trump’s proposals to halt funding for the EAS and TIGER programs concerned him. “That does only because I was the prime mover of the legislation on their reauthorization,” Inhofe responded. “And I’ve also seen the value of some of these programs. So I think that’s a starting place.” Pros can check out the full Q&A here.

STOP FLYING OVER MY LAWN: The FAA goes to federal court today to defend its NextGen program against a noise complaint from the city of Phoenix stemming from the agency’s changes to flight patterns over the Arizona capital. Phoenix isn’t the only U.S. city to complain of noise in areas not accustomed to having planes fly overhead under the new flight paths (cough, D.C., cough), but this case is being watched to gauge how the judicial system responds to an effort that’s been years in the making.

Long story short: “The city and neighborhood groups bringing the suit argue that the FAA didn't adequately follow procedures in place under federal law to evaluate and mitigate effects of changing flight paths on the environment and historical places,” Lauren writes. “But under a 2012 FAA reauthorization law, Congress gave the agency explicit authority to expedite environmental studies of NextGen-related flight path changes.”

Either way: Congress addressed the Phoenix-specific issue in the fiscal 2017 defense authorization bill, calling on FAA to review the categorical exclusion and evaluate whether the NextGen changes affected the environment enough to warrant a more comprehensive study. But the agency is still coming up with a plan to comply with that mandate.

SHIFTING GEARS: Bella Dinh-Zarr has taken over as acting chairwoman at NTSB after serving as the board’s vice chairwoman for almost two years. Christopher Hart, whose two-year term as chairman ended Wednesday, is staying at the independent agency as one of five board members.

In the rail world: Operation Lifesaver’s directors picked Robert VanderClute, the president and chief operating officer of a consulting firm called FirstRail International, to serve as the board’s chairman. VanderClute’s past jobs include vice president of safety and operations at the Association of American Railroads, vice president for rail at Parsons Brinckerhoff and COO of Amtrak.

THE AUTOBAHN:

— "Fury road: Did Uber steal the driverless future from Google?" Bloomberg.

— "Uber to seek arbitration in Waymo self-driving case." Reuters.

— "Judges use Trump’s own words in ruling against revised travel ban." POLITICO.

— "Internal metrics show how often Uber’s self-driving cars need human help." BuzzFeed News.

— "German prosecutor searches VW's dieselgate law firm." Reuters.

— "Lawmaker seeks FAA explanation for SMO settlement." AINonline.

— "Sleepy behind the wheel? Some cars can tell." The New York Times.

— "Caterpillar taps former U.S. attorney general to help deal with government probe." The Wall Street Journal.

— "BMW says self-driving car to be level 5 capable by 2021." Reuters.

— "Canada introduces rules for recreational drone users." The Associated Press.

THE COUNTDOWN: DOT appropriations run out in 42 days. The FAA reauthorization expires in 197 days. Highway and transit policy is up for renewal in 1,294 days.

** A message from APTA: Across the country, public transportation is the link between people and possibility. It joins consumers and businesses, restaurants and customers, workers and jobs. For every $1 billion invested in public transportation infrastructure, more than 50,000 jobs are created. Three out of four Americans support increased investment in public transit infrastructure—whether they use it or not.

Yet while other nations significantly invest in their transportation infrastructure, America now ranks behind our global competitors. According to the Federal Transit Administration, more than 40% of buses and 25% of rail transit assets are in marginal or poor condition, and nearly $90 billion is needed just to bring the nation’s public transportation systems into a state of good repair. We can do better.

Learn more at apta.com/InvestNow **