Highway Bill Clears House

After more than a year of delays, House members on Thursday passed a six-year, $284 billion bill designed to ease traffic congestion and repair crumbling roads.

"This will be the premier domestic legislation" of this congressional year, House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, said before the 417-9 vote.

He said the bill could have an immediate affect on the average driver who spends a week and a half every year stuck in traffic and a nation that loses $67 billion in productivity and wasted fuel every year.

Despite the huge amount of money in the bill, it's a lot less than members of Congress initially envisioned. A fight over dollars between the Republican Congress and President Bush held the bill up for over a year, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob Fuss.

The money, which comes from the gasoline tax, goes to states to repair and build needed highways and bridges. But, as always, there are special projects put in by individual members of Congress – $11 billion in what some call "earmarks" and others call "pork."

Young's state of Alaska would be one of the biggest benefactors. The amendment would raise from $3 million to $200 million the funds available for a bridge near Anchorage and from $3 million to $125 million the funding for another bridge outside Ketchikan.

The bill still faces a tough road before reaching the president's desk.

The White House, in a statement Wednesday, threatened to veto the bill if Congress exceeds the $284 billion figure. And it issued a second veto threat over a provision that would require Congress to reopen the act — and seek more money — if it fails by 2009 to change how federal funds are distributed among the states.

The last six-year highway bill, funded at $218 billion, expired in September 2003. But it has been kept alive through short-term extensions because the White House rejected any plan that would raise taxes or add to the federal deficit.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is to take up the Senate version of the bill next week, and there is pressure among senators to go above $284 billion. The Senate is also unhappy that the House bill contains thousands of special projects that every House member will be able to brag to his constituents about bringing home federal money.

Many House members lamented that they didn't have a bigger bill. Last year, the Transportation Committee proposed $375 billion, paid for in part by raising the federal gas tax that goes into the highway trust fund for construction and safety programs.

"We do not have the resources needed to meet our nation's transportation needs," said Thomas Petri, R-Wis., head of the Transportation subcommittee on highways.

Backers stressed that every $1 billion in highway spending creates an estimated 47,500 new jobs.

Failure to reach a deal on a bill last year was also a result of demands by some states that they get a larger share of federal money. Under the old bill, states were guaranteed 90.5 cents back for every dollar they contribute to the highway trust fund. The reopening clause in the House bill — and opposed by the White House — would set a goal of a 95 percent rate of return by 2009.

The committee late Wednesday came up with a complicated formula that would increase the pot of money to be disbursed among the states — by including special project money — and ensure that every state would come out ahead under the legislation.

The legislation would guarantee funds of $225.5 billion for the Federal Highway Administration, $52.3 billion for the Federal Transit Administration and more than $6 billion for safety programs.

The measure would carve out $590 million for a new program for high risk rural roads, where 61 percent of all highway-related fatalities occur, and $634 million in incentive grants to help states combat alcohol and illegal drug use by drivers. It also would call for $830 million for a new program to fund the construction of dedicated truck lanes.

Such programs, supporters said, were needed when one-third of the 42,000 deaths on the nation's roads every year are linked to poor road conditions and roadside hazards.