During a recent trip to Washington, D.C., UO professors and Sustainable Cities Ini­tiative faculty members Marc Schlossberg and Nico Larco met with U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) and top staff mem­bers to Congressmen Peter DeFazio and Earl Blumenauer. Schlossberg and Larco provided an update to lawmakers and their staff members on the work of SCI in promoting sustainability in Oregon com­munities. Schlossberg, who also serves as an associate director of the National Insti­tute on Transportation and Communities (NITC)—formerly Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC)—reminded lawmakers and their staffs about the importance of transporta­tion research funding as the U.S. House and Senate continue to struggle to pass a Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill. NITC is a federally funded partner­ship between Portland State University, the University of Oregon, the Oregon Institute of Technology, and the Univer­sity of Utah that stimulates and conducts research on surface transportation, edu­cates current and future transportation leaders and encourages the real-world use of research results.