By Michael D. Shear and Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 30, 2006

RICHMOND, March 29 -- Virginia House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) said that the deal to give control of the Dulles Toll Road to the region's airports authority is "shortsighted" and that he is examining whether it can be blocked.

In an interview Wednesday, Howell said the administration of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) had failed to adequately review competing proposals from four private companies that might have been more lucrative for the commonwealth.

"I don't understand what the rush was," Howell said. "It's fair to say that I'd sure like to do something. But I don't know what that is."

Howell's objections add another powerful voice in opposition to the deal, which has bipartisan support in Congress and the state legislature and among Northern Virginia business leaders. Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerry E. Connolly (D) has been a vocal critic. He said the deal does not protect the interests of toll-paying commuters.

On Tuesday, Arlington County Board member Barbara A. Favola (D) said local officials don't believe the airports authority board can be held accountable by Northern Virginians. She called on the authority to add a locally appointed member to "give some sense of what the average citizen might think."

It is unclear whether Howell, Connolly or others could block a final agreement between the state and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

The deal allows the authority to set tolls on a major local commuter route and to control many aspects of the planned Metrorail line from Falls Church to Dulles International Airport and Loudoun County.

Howell accused Kaine and state transportation officials of paying scant attention to companies that had spent millions of dollars developing proposals to run the lucrative toll road.

"These vendors are going to say, 'I don't think they even looked at our proposal,' " Howell said. "I don't see how [state officials] could have analyzed them with the deliberation that is appropriate."

Delacey Skinner, Kaine's communications director, said: "The governor has confidence in the airports authority to do this. That's kind of the end of it."

She said Howell and other members of the Republican-led House of Delegates should be spending their time working on a state budget and a plan for road and transit funding.

"The House Republican leadership doesn't have time to work on transportation," Skinner said. "But they have time to criticize everything. That's unfortunate."

Airports Authority Chairman Mary A. "Mame" Reiley said she is puzzled by Howell's comments.

"We're cutting out the middleman," Reiley said, noting that companies would build a margin of profit into their operation of the toll road. "The millions they would be making will [now] be going directly for rail to Dulles."

In an interview Wednesday, James E. Bennett, president and chief executive of the airports authority, said the agency is trying to work out the details of how it would assume control and what the next steps of the project would be.

"We're not that deep into it yet," he said.

Last year, five groups submitted bids to take over management of the toll road in return for its revenue over the next 50 years. Four of those cleared the state's first round of scrutiny, but they were put on hold when the airports authority jumped in with its bid in December.

State officials said they would consider the authority's offer first because the authority controls the land that the road sits on and has the power to reject any other deals.

The private-sector offers carried the promise of cash payments of several hundred million dollars, immediate fixes to the highway and, in at least one case, building high-occupancy toll, or HOT, lanes.

But unlike the authority offer, none of the private-sector proposals guaranteed enough money to build the entire rail line from Falls Church to Loudoun County.

Staff writer Alec MacGillis contributed to this report.