WASHINGTON - Congress on Friday passed sweeping highway
and mass transit legislation that will send nearly $300 billion to the states
to build and fix roads, create thousands of new jobs and - lawmakers hope -
save lives and cut hours wasted in traffic jams.
The bill "will affect
every American in some way," said Sen. James Jeffords (search), I-Vt. "The
impact of this bill will be felt for decades to come."
The 91-4 vote in
the Senate came hours after the House approved the measure, 412-8.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (search), R-Ill., speaking shortly before the
House passed the six-year, $286.4 billion transportation bill, said that after
passage maybe fathers would have to answer the question "Daddy, when are we
going to get there?" three or four fewer times in their lives.
Afterward, lawmakers streamed out of the Capitol, heading home for
their summer break carrying promises of new highway and bridge projects, rail
and bus facilities, and bike paths and recreational trails they had secured for
their states and districts.
Under the legislation, each state would
receive a share of federal highway funding depending on their contributions -
through the federal gas tax - to the Highway Trust Fund (search). The bill,
running more than 1,000 pages, also specifies thousands of projects requested
by individual members.
The projects range from two bridges in Alaska,
one named for House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska,
funded at more than $450 million, to $72,000 for a bus in Cornwall, N.Y.
Taxpayers for Common Sense (search), which lists 6,361 of these
projects valued at $23 billion, and other watchdog groups say such projects are
wasteful, handed out as political rewards.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
cited dozens of what he suggested were questionable projects in a highway bill,
including $3 million to fund production of a documentary about infrastructure
advancements in Alaska.
The bill, he said, is "terrifying in its fiscal
consequences and disappointing for the lack of fiscal discipline." But other
lawmakers say the projects are determined on merit and see them as essential to
their states and communities.
They say money for infrastructure is well
spent when congestion costs American drivers 3.6 billion hours of delay and 5.7
billion gallons of wasted fuel every year. Substandard road conditions and
roadside hazards are a factor in nearly one-third of the 42,000 traffic
fatalities annually, officials say, and every $1 billion in highway
construction creates 47,500 jobs.
"I don't think there is anything this
Congress could do more definitively to put people back to work, to stimulate
our economy to increase our efficiency, our competitiveness, both nationally
and internationally," said Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, a top Democrat on the
Transportation Committee.
The bill allots more than $50 billion for
transit programs and $6 billion for transportation safety.
Joan
Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, said she was pleased that the
legislation would require the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to
create stability standards by 2009 to prevent vehicle rollovers.
It
contains a $15 billion highway bond plan, pushed by Sens. Jim Talent, R-Mo.,
and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, that will promote road
and bridge construction through public-private partnerships.
Rep. James
Oberstar, D-Minn., ranking Democrat on the Transportation Committee, pushed for
a five-year, $612 million Safe Routes to School program to encourage kids to
walk and ride bikes to school.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving praised
the inclusion of $29 million a year to implement high-visibility law
enforcement efforts to deter drunken driving and grant funds to states that
pass a primary seat belt law - allowing police to stop vehicles for seat belt
violations - or achieve a belt usage rate of 85 percent.
The bill
expands toll pilot projects for new roads as a way to ease congestion, and it
gives states authority to set rules for access to car pool lanes by
single-occupancy hybrid vehicles.
The legislation covers 2004-2009 and
comes nearly two years after the 1998-2003 act expired. Congress on Friday had
to approve the 12th temporary extension of the old act to keep money flowing to
the states while it tried to come up with a new, more generous bill.
A
main cause for the delay was a rift between Congress, demanding a maximum
amount of spending on the infrastructure, and the White House, which threatened
to veto any bill that added to the federal deficit.
There was also the
problem of satisfying the complaints of "donor" states that pay more into the
Highway Trust Fund than they get back in federal grants. The final bill
guarantees that by 2008 every state will get at least a 92 percent rate of
return, up from the current minimum of 90.5 percent.
The House had
planned to vote on the legislation Thursday, but debate was halted when several
lawmakers objected strongly to Senate-inserted language in the compromise that
would have reopened a runway on an air base in Montana.
House members
contended that was an attempt to reverse the process under which military base
facilities are closed. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who promoted the proposal,
insisted that the base-closing process was not applicable to the runway at
Malmstrom Air Force Base, but he agreed to withdraw the proposal so the bill
could move forward.
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