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Senate approves transportation appropriations bill

WASHINGTON  — The Senate on Thursday approved generous increases for transportation and housing programs as it passed the fifth of 12 appropriations bills funding the government for the budget year that begins in just two weeks.

The bill, passed 73-25, would permit $122 billion in new spending for programs such as road projects, housing subsidies for the poor, community development grants to local governments, and generous subsidies for rural air service. On average, that's a 12 percent increase over current levels, in line with efforts by Democrats controlling Congress to beef up domestic programs funded by Congress each year.

The bill also contains a clause establishing a controversial one-year pilot program to allow 100,000-pound, six-axle trucks on interstate highways in Maine.

Proponents say the proposal makes sense in that it would extend the current six-axle 100,000-pound limit already allowed on the Maine Turnpike, to interstate highways. The Turnpike extends from Kittery near the state’s southern border with New Hampshire to Augusta, and is also designated at Interstate 95.

Against the pilot program are consumer, health, safety, environmental and truck driver organizations, which were recently joined by the families of truck crash victims to issue a warning to the motoring public about the proposed pilot program provision.

The group said it was concerned that national and state trucking interests in other Northeast and mid-Atlantic states would use any such congressional action as a springboard for seeking a congressional repeal of the federal truck weight exemption in other states and nationwide.

The increases come on top of an extraordinary infusion of economic stimulus appropriations in February — $48 billion in transportation accounts alone, most of it yet to be spent — and generous increases provided in the omnibus spending bill enacted in March.

With the Oct. 1 start of the 2010 budget year looming, not a single one of the 12 bills has become law. Congress will have to pass a stopgap measure before the deadline to make sure the government doesn't shut down.

The measure generally follows a companion bill that passed the House in July. But the Senate was far less generous with President Barack Obama's initiative to build high-speed rail corridors. The program received $8 billion in the stimulus bill and the House followed up with another $4 billion for 2010, quadrupling Obama's $1 billion request for follow-up financing.

But the Senate Appropriations panel complained that the administration's plans for the high-speed rail project remain vague. The Senate measure blocks any high-speed rail construction grants from being given out until the Transportation Department develops standards that make sure the projects make sense.

Critics of high-speed rail say the expected number of riders doesn't justify the extraordinary upfront construction costs.

The bill also delivers $175 million for much-criticized subsidies of flights in and out of rural communities, a $39 million increase from current amounts. Such subsidies can average thousands of dollars on some routes and routinely reach hundreds of dollars per one-way ticket.

Lawmakers acknowledge that they have no idea what the true cost of the program will be this year given the ongoing upheaval among smaller airlines. They gave Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood power to shift money out of other programs to keep the subsidies flowing.

Reforms promised by the Obama administration have yet to arrive, but there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency to fix the situation, either within the Administration or on Capitol Hill.

The Senate defeated, 53-43, a move by Jim DeMint, R-S.C., to deny a $1.4 million subsidy for flights in and out of the Johnstown, Pa., airport. DeMint cited media reports about lavish amounts of federal tax dollars provided to the airport — which averages about 14,000 commercial passengers a year at a subsidy of about $100 per one-way ticket — by its congressional benefactor, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. DeMint also would have denied the airport from receiving more money from the underlying bill.

Highway programs would receive $41 billion from a trust fund financed by gasoline tax revenues and another $1.4 billion from general funds, an unusual step.

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