The spending bill, which was passed by a vote of 71-22, would provide another $31.6 billion in emergency appropriations for FY 2002, including $14 billion for defense, $5 billion for rebuilding New York, and $3 billion for increased security of ports, airports, nuclear facilities and other areas that may be vulnerable to terrorist attack. The Senate version of the supplemental is $4 billion above the President's request.

Addressing the $8.6 billion proposed cut in highway funding that was included in the President's budget for FY 2003, the bill provides that highway spending in fiscal year 2003 will be at least $27.7 billion, and no more than $28.9 billion. It appears that $4.4 billion of the restored funding would be placed behind a budgetary firewall for distribution under the TEA-21 formula. However, the remaining $1.3 billion would be included in domestic discretionary funding. The House-passed supplemental spending bill contains $4.4 billion in highway funding, all of which is behind a firewall.

The firewall issue will only have significance if the Congress acts to continue the budget caps that expire this year. The "firewall" is a mechanism that prevents Congress from using transportation funding to increase spending on other domestic discretionary programs. If no budget caps exist, then there is no need to erect a budgetary firewall to protect transportation spending. However, Budget and Appropriations Committee negotiators reportedly reached an agreement on establishing an overall budget for FY 2003 of $768 billion, with budget caps of $393 billion for defense and $375 billion for domestic discretionary spending. However, the agreement was reached too late to include it in the supplemental bill. Consequently, the group may attempt to attach it to a bill to raise the federal debt limit later this month.

Rescission of FY 2002 Contract Authority

While the Senate bill would alleviate the impact of RABA (revenue aligned budget authority) cuts in FY 2003, a separate provision in the bill to rescind $320 million in contract authority already apportioned to the states has sent shock waves through the transportation community.

"With many states already approaching the end of FY 2002, a rescission of this magnitude of the contract authority apportioned under TEA-21 sets a dangerous precedent," said Executive Director John Horsley. "Transportation projects take from six to ten years to plan and implement. The loss of apportionments at the eleventh hour plays havoc with state programs and violates the multi-year intent of authorizing legislation."

Initially a $200 million rescission was apparently inserted in the bill to offset a portion of the supplemental spending, and similar rescissions were sought from throughout federal spending accounts. In later action, the Senate chose to rescind an additional $120 million in contract authority in order to offset an additional $120 million in emergency relief funding to address the I-40 bridge collapse in Oklahoma and other disaster relief.

Conference Must Overcome Administration Opposition

House and Senate appropriators reportedly hope to reach a conference agreement on the supplemental before the July 4th recess. However, there are a number of conflicting provisions, including the higher level of spending in the Senate bill.

On June 4, the administration issued a statement indicating that it "strongly opposes " the Senate bill and any amendment that would further increase spending. The statement adds that if the Senate bill were presented to the President his advisors would recommend a veto.

The committee approved two amendments to S. 1917: a complete substitute offered by Committee Chairman James Jeffords (I-VT) and by Ranking Minority Member Robert Smith (R-NH), and a firewall amendment sponsored by Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and John Warner (R-VA). The Jeffords/Smith substitute increased highway spending from the original $27.75 billion in S. 1917 to the $28.9 billion amount that was also included in the Senate Budget Committee version of the budget resolution. The bill would also require that the funding be distributed through the existing TEA-21 formulas. The substitute added the House-passed language that deems that RABA will be calculated at zero for fiscal year 2003, rather than a negative amount, and a provision similar to the House "sense of Congress" language that RABA should be revised to allow for a more predictability and stability in highway funding.

The Baucus/Warner amendment placed the $28.9 billion of highway spending behind the protection of the firewall. The "firewall" provision would only take effect should the Senate act to continue the expiring budget caps for FY 2003.

Both amendments to S. 1917 were agreed to by voice vote. In addition to the amendment's sponsors, Senators Bond, Boxer, Carper, Clinton, Corzine, Hutchinson, Inhofe, Lieberman and Reid participated in the markup. The bill now is available for consideration by the full Senate, but it is unclear if it will be taken up, given the provisions that are included in the supplemental appropriations bill (see related article).

Observers predicted the concept, which needs approval by Congress, could run into significant opposition from some agencies that would lose chunks of their current purview and some members of Congress who now have oversight authority, through the committee system, that might be lost as pieces of cabinet divisions are traded around.

Members of Congress were generally positive in their reaction to the proposal, though some voiced concern about the potential for friction as now-disparate agencies are grouped together. Ridge shared the concept with more than 50 governors, homeland security directors and mayors in conference calls on Thursday. The agency would take in portions of the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, State, Transportation and Treasury.

Bush, who with his staff kept the proposal under wraps for weeks, termed the plan the most ambitious reorganization of the federal government's national security structure in 50 years. The last cabinet agency created was the Department of Veterans Affairs in 1989.

The Homeland Security Department would encompass the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Customs Service, as well as the recently created Transportation Security Administration. That would make it the third-largest federal entity, with only the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs having more employees.

"As we have learned more about the plans and capabilities of the terrorist network, we have concluded that our government must be reorganized to deal more effectively with the new threats of the 21st century," Bush said in a live address from the White House, carried on several national television networks. "We now know that thousands of trained killers are plotting to attack us, and this terrible knowledge requires us to act differently."

Bush already had created an Office of Homeland Security, and named a close friend -- former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge -- to head it. But the office had been criticized because Ridge had no clear authority to require action by the numerous federal agencies with some role to play in fighting terrorism..

The Post reported that the proposal was planned by White House officials led by Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., with Ridge's help. Many of the officials who stand to lose chunks of their existing agencies if the plan goes forward did not learn of it until yesterday. Congressional Democrats had been separately building support for creation of a cabinet-level agency.

The Post noted that Bush did not say who he wanted to lead the department; several senior officials told the newspaper they believed Ridge would move into that job. But Ridge has not publicly voiced an interest in assuming the leadership of the proposed agency, and the Bush plan calls for retention of a separate homeland security adviser, not accountable to Congress, under the new structure.

The administration told the Post that 169,000 employees would be moved into the new department from existing agencies. The Department of Homeland Security would have four divisions: one that would control borders and keep out terrorists and explosives; a second working with state and local authorities to prepare for emergencies; a third developing technologies to detect chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and a fourth to treat those exposed to harmful elements and analyze intelligence and law-enforcement data. A special unit would help the FBI and CIA share and compare information.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), voted along party lines last month to create a Homeland Security Department. But the Bush proposal goes farther than the Senate approach, the Post said.

Lieberman offered praise for the administration plan, but said he expects "opposition from the bureaucracies that are being put under the new secretary of homeland security and from members of Congress who are close to those bureaucracies."

The bill, HR 3983, went to conference after its passage, where there is concern the turf tussles could resume.

Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-AK) and Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) had disagreed about which federal agency would oversee identification and security screening of cargo entering the U.S. Young had wanted to move the responsibility to the recently formed Transportation Security Administration (which, with Customs, may be moved under a Bush Administration proposal to a new cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security; see preceding story in today's AASHTO Journal), but Thomas disagreed, wanting it kept with the U.S. Customs Service, which Ways and Means oversees.

The latest version of the bill keeps the jurisdiction with Customs, and Thomas apparently believes the Senate will support his side of the argument, as a Senate port security bill passed by voice vote Dec. 20 (S 1214) would keep Customs in that role and authorize $1.1 billion over five years to upgrade its security approaches, including hiring of new Customs agents.

The overall House bill would require the Transportation Department to evaluate security threats at each of the 361 seaports in the nation, and would authorize $225 million in grants to boost port security through FY 2005.

The bill also calls for the Coast Guard to develop anti-terrorism teams for protection of ships, cargoes, and ports, and to provide "sea marshals" to prevent or respond to terrorist threats. The Coast Guard also would be tasked with evaluating security at foreign ports exhibiting significant risks of terrorism. It could block U.S. ships from entering U.S. ports if they had put in at foreign ports deemed to have insufficient security.

"For the past few years, Amtrak pretended it was on a glide path to self-sufficiency and maintained that fiction far too long," Gunn wrote to U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), a leading critic of Amtrak. "No passenger railroad system in the world operates without some form of public support. Why Congress thought Amtrak could somehow become free of public support escapes me."

Bill Schulz, spokesman for Amtrak, said it is hoped the rail line can use $200 million of the federal appropriation is expects to receive in the fiscal year set to begin Oct. 1 in advance of that date. Amtrak still seeks $1.2 billion from Congress for the full 2002-2003 fiscal year, Schulz said.

Schulz also said Gunn will propose a major reorganization, which will cut the number of "vice president" titles from 84 to around 20. Gunn also plans to consolidate Amtrak's three separate operating divisions - Amtrak West, Intercity and Northeast Corridor - into a single overall management structure.

"Congestion is the number-one transportation problem our nation faces today," Young said at the Thursday event, cosponsored by the Reason Foundation."As our committee prepares to reauthorize the federal surface-transportation program, we must examine every possible means to address this growing problem." Young stopped short of endorsing the concept, but said it is worth weighing as lawmakers prepare to reauthorize the federal-aid transportation program.

The proposal stems from a Reason Foundation study, that shows dedicated truck lanes may prove an important tool for reducing trucks in general-Purpose lanes - and thereby, the incidence of auto-truck accidents. According to the study, the lanes would be self-financing and could save as much as $40 billion in shipping costs each year.

Robert Poole, director of transportation studies for the foundation, said that the long-distance inter-city trucking system needs a fresh approach. He said the study, titled "Toll Truckways: A New Path Toward Safer and More Efficient Freight Transportation," offers a viable alternative.

Such truckways would consist of one or more lanes in each direction for sole use by large trucks, separated from existing lanes by concrete barriers, and generally equipped with their own ingress and egress ramps. The truck "freeways-within-the-freeway" would be custom built and designed for use by longer and heavier trucks, which would have exclusive rights to the lanes, and would keep the general motoring public free from exposure to big rigs in the mixed-traffic lanes.

The study proposes that tolls will be collected from the users with a rebate given to the user for fuel taxes. The study also calls for third-party financing to build, operate and maintain the lanes.

Mineta said the funds will be used to smooth out traffic movements and improve inspection facilities that keep unsafe foreign vehicles out of the U.S.

These funds were appropriated by Congress from revenue-aligned budget authority funds and will be distributed in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas under the department's Border Infrastructure Program. Of the $54 million, $2.1 million will be awarded to Arizona; $8.9 million to California; $2.2 million to New Mexico; and $40.8 million to Texas.

"The department already had an internal policy that directs the accommodation of cyclists and pedestrians," said Jay Meyer, WYDOT's bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. "This makes it more formal, though, and those policy statements are included as appendices in the plan."

"Almost every urban area in Wyoming has developed or is in the process of developing facilities for bikes and pedestrians," Meyer said.

The programs in the "Great Projects" series include "Bridging New York," about the monumental bridges tying Manhattan to the world; "The Big Dig," the story of Boston's Central Artery highway project; "A Tale of Two Rivers," which shares the history of flood-control and irrigation work on the Colorado and Mississippi Rivers; and "Electric Nation," telling how the genius of Thomas Alva Edison and others helped America move from dangerous gas lighting to the electric light and power we use today.

"These programs are inspiring and tell a great story," said AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley. "Some of the obstacles these innovators faced were staggering - but they had the smarts, and the will, to bring us wonders of the modern-day world."

AASHTO also sponsors a program aimed at interesting pre-college youth in careers in engineering and science fields, called TRAC. The "Great Projects" series may be of interest to high school vocational counselors in presenting engineering-related professions to students, Horsley said.

Rauenzahn, who was in TRAC at Baltimore's Parkville High School, had earlier thought she'd end up a doctor. The AASHTO program introduces pre-college students to the transportation and civil engineering fields and helps them build the skill sets needed for such careers.

"TRAC helped me establish a direction and define my future," she said. After being introduced to engineering through TRAC, she worked as a summer intern at the Maryland State Highway Administration, and found the experience so positive she changed her career plans.

"I applied to colleges as an undeclared engineering major, and was accepted to Duke - a particularly selective school," Ms. Rauenzahn said. "I also worked at SHA for five summers - two in hydrology and three in construction. This experience exposed me to different professional situations and career options within the field. I felt like I had a real advantage going into college."