How to Unite Congress: Spend Billions on Projects for Roads

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March 11, 2005
How to Unite Congress: Spend Billions on Projects for Roads
By CARL HULSE

ASHINGTON, March 10 - The usually fractious members of the House of Representatives on Thursday found something they nearly all shared: an appetite for millions of dollars for home-state road, bridge and transit projects.

On a vote of 417 to 9, House members approved a $284 billion, six-year measure that would pay for transportation upgrades around the nation, including more than 4,000 projects sought by individual lawmakers at a cost of more than $12 billion.

The measure, which stalled last year in a dispute with the White House over spending levels, stands a much better chance of becoming law this year. The bottom line is in accord with President Bush's budget, which does not deal with specific projects, and lawmakers are eager to initiate projects that will create thousands of jobs, ease traffic congestion and rebuild crumbling roads.

"It's estimated for every $1 billion we spend on road construction, nearly 48,000 jobs are created," said Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois. "But it's more than just jobs. We need an adequate infrastructure to move people and the materials they make efficiently."

Authors of the measure said the amount of spending should have been even greater given the deteriorating state of the nation's transportation network and increasing gridlock. They said they could be coming back for more money next year though the White House has threatened to veto any final bill that allows Congress to reopen the legislation in pursuit of additional dollars.

"This is just a small step forward," said Representative Don Young, the Alaska Republican who is chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, saying the nation should be spending as much as $500 billion. Mr. Young said he hoped to work out an agreement with the Senate, which is drawing up its own version of the legislation, and pass a final bill by June 1 in time for some of the money to be available for the summer construction season.

Some senators are pressing for higher spending, fewer of the local projects sought by House lawmakers and changes in the amounts distributed to the states. But the pent-up demand for highway spending should create an environment for lawmakers to strike a deal, given that the federal highway program is operating on an extension of the old law due to expire at the end of May.

"It should be pretty easy," said Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma and chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who plans to push a measure through his panel next week.

Not all lawmakers were pleased with the outcome in the House. Representative Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who is a persistent critic of federal spending, said, "Bipartisan porkfests like this bill make me long for the days of gridlock."

The near-unanimous vote in the often bitterly divided chamber demonstrates the popularity of the bill with most lawmakers, who see it as one of the best ways to turn federal money into tangible results back home. Besides the overall allocation of federal gas tax dollars to state and local transportation offices, the bill is jammed with projects ranging from individual bridges and highways championed by lawmakers to equestrian and bike trails, parking garages and even museum improvements.

The group Taxpayers for Common Sense tallied 4,128 so-called "earmarks" included in the measure at the request of individual lawmakers at a cost of $12.4 billion. An official of the taxpayer's group portrayed this as a spending spree at odds with the current Congressional calls for restraint.

"Instead of tightening their fiscal belt, Congress had instead decided to fund horse trails, museums, interpretive centers and water taxis," said Keith Ashdown, vice president for policy at the watchdog group.

Mr. Ashdown identified Mr. Young, who makes no apologies for seeking development money for his state, as one of the biggest winners in the measure, including a total of more than $400 million for two projects in Alaska that critics have dubbed "bridges to nowhere." One, near Ketchikan, would be slightly higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and almost as long as the Golden Gate Bridge.

Alaska received more than $204 million in special projects at a rate of $326.51 per capita - by far the largest amount when figured by population.

Among the scores of other projects singled out by the organization were: $3 million for improvements to a museum in Warren, Ohio, dedicated to the Packard automobile; $7 million for snowmobile trails in Vermont; almost $35 million for landscaping around freeways in Houston; $3.2 million to build an interpretative center and improve trails in the Daniel Boone Wilderness Trail Corridor; and $500,000 to improve streets, sidewalks and curbs outside the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Of New York State's $768 million in project money, the city received the largest chunks. Representative Anthony Weiner landed $15 million to buy three new ferries for travel between the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens and Manhattan. While Staten Island will get a third bus depot for $12 million, West Harlem can expect $14 million for street and waterfront improvements.

NB - This refers to the Harlem Piers Park planned by the community to be carried out with funds captured by Congressman Rangel for that purpose, ground breaking work is to begin sometime this summer 2005 - JRM.

Without earmarking a specific amount, the bill also made a commitment to the continued construction of a rail link from Long Island to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, a project that New York lawmakers have argued will cut commuting time for tens of thousands of workers. The bill also authorized that work continue on the long-awaited Second Avenue subway line.

According to a House analysis, the measure represents an increase of 42 percent over the spending in the previous highway bill passed in 1998. Within the measure, $225.5 billion would go to the Federal Highway Administration; $52.3 billion to the Federal Transit Administration; $3.2 billion for the National Traffic and Highway Safety Administration; and $2.9 billion for the Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

"This bill is going to make vital investments in the crumbling infrastructure of the country to refurbish it, maintain it and improve it," said Representative Peter A. DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon.


Ian Urbina contributed reporting for this article