WASHINGTON, DC - A White House plan to postpone work on a new highway bill until next year is causing trouble for the Transportation Department's "livability" proposals.

Two House Republican appropriators yesterday criticized DOT for moving forward with its effort to link transportation planning and land use without first figuring out a way to solve the ongoing road and transit funding crises.

"There is a lot of concern that there is no surface transportation authorization coming from DOT and that turns into irritation when you see those at the department proposing to skim off highway dollars -- dollars that come from the bankrupt Highway Trust Fund -- and take those dollars from cities and states to fund a boutique program," said Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa), the top Republican on the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee.

President Obama is asking lawmakers to use the fiscal 2011 budget to reroute roughly $500 million from existing road and rail programs to the livability initiative. In addition to the funding request, Obama has also pledged to recast the nation's overall transportation strategy to focus more heavily on such efforts and has created an interagency partnership between DOT, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and U.S. EPA to work on the issue.

Some conservatives have blasted the proposal for being, at best, poorly defined and, at worst, an effort to force Americans to abandon their personal cars and trucks for mass transit. A handful of rural lawmakers have also expressed concern that the effort will focus too much on major metro centers.

Latham and Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) mostly steered clear of those criticisms, instead using the White House's effort to postpone major work on the next highway bill as an opportunity to open up a new line of attack on the livability initiative.