06-08-2002
TRANSPORTATION: Senate Panel Boosts Highway Funds
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on June 4 approved an
additional $5.7 billion for federal highway projects over President Bush's
request, boosting the total authorization to $28.9 billion for fiscal
2003. The bill, which the committee passed by a unanimous voice vote, is
co-sponsored by 75 senators. The House approved a similar measure on May
15 by a 410-5 vote, but that bill includes a $4.4 billion increase over
Bush's request. "This will allow our states to continue to move
forward on their important transportation projects and protect hundreds of
thousands of American jobs in every region of the nation," Senate
Environment and Public Works Chairman James M. Jeffords, I-Vt., said in a
statement. The panel approved an amendment by Sens. John W. Warner, R-Va.,
and Max Baucus, D-Mont., to put the entire $28.9 billion behind a
budgetary "firewall" to protect the cash from being spent
elsewhere. "Highway tax dollars should continue to go to highways and
transit," Baucus said. The legislation would preserve the existing
formulas in the 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, or
TEA 21, for distributing money to the states. TEA 21 sets aside money
raised by gasoline taxes in the Highway Trust Fund for transportation
projects. But congressional appropriators loathe TEA 21's guaranteed
funding formula because it provides automatic funding for transportation
projects and eliminates the review of the Appropriations Committees. A
shortfall in the highway fund, caused by a revenue miscalculation in
fiscal 2001 and the effects of the recession, has forced Congress to
authorize more money for the fund than the established formula would
allow-though there is still debate about how much spending is wise, and
whether the budgetary "firewall" should be preserved.
Michael Steel/National Journal News Service
National Journal
