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House expected to approve $286.4-billion highway bill
Associated Press
Published July 29, 2005
WASHINGTON - Congress is on the verge of approving $286.4-billion in highway and mass transit money for the states, sending lawmakers home for their summer vacations bearing big gifts of roads, bridges and jobs.
The House was expected to vote on the six-year measure late Thursday or early this morning, its last major act before recessing for the six-week summer break. The Senate is to follow suit today. With the president's expected signature, passage of the act would end an almost two-year impasse in which Congress and the White House battled over the proper spending levels and states were at odds over how best to divide the billions in federal highway money.
The bill would direct federal funds to thousands of projects requested by members, from $200-million for a bridge in Alaska to $2-million to pave roads on a South Dakota Indian reservation.
The nation has been without a new act since September 2003, when the 1998-2003 law, funded at $218-billion, expired. Since then, Congress has had to pass 11 temporary extensions to keep money flowing to the states for construction projects.
That delay has disrupted schedules for new projects and prevented the hiring of tens of thousands of construction workers.
The final funding level for the 2004-09 period is nearly $100-billion less than lawmakers and transportation officials have said is necessary to make real improvements in the nation's deteriorating, congested and unsafe roads and bridges.
"It's not going to solve the nation's congestion crisis, but it is a step in the right direction," said Ed Mortimer, director of transportation infrastructure at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The legislation guarantees that by 2008 every state will get back at least 92 percent of what it contributes through federal gas taxes to the Highway Trust Fund.
[Last modified July 29, 2005, 00:52:10]
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