By Michael D. Shear and Tim Craig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 7, 2007

RICHMOND, Feb. 6 -- Virginia's House of Delegates approved a sweeping multibillion-dollar transportation plan Tuesday, receiving bipartisan support but setting in motion a confrontation with the Senate, which has already rejected the House approach.

The 62 to 39 vote by the Republican-controlled House was a stunning turnaround for the delegates. Last year, leaders furiously opposed the slightest tax increase and helped push the state to the brink of a government shutdown. Nine Democrats supported the new bill.

The measure now heads to the Senate, where a nearly identical version of the bill was killed in the Finance Committee last week amid concerns about diverting money from other state programs to pay for roads projects. The Senate reached Tuesday's deadline for new legislation without approving a comprehensive roads measure.

That means a deal brokered by some senior Republican senators and delegates is only half-fulfilled. Still, lawmakers in both chambers said plenty of time remains before the General Assembly is scheduled to end Feb. 24.

"This plan will give Virginia's fastest-growing localities more authority to combat sprawl and traffic congestion," said House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem). "It will enact significant reforms in the state's delivery of transportation services and inject more than $2 billion in Virginia's network of roads, railways and public transit without statewide sales, income or gas tax increases."

If approved by the Senate and signed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), the 91-page law would raise auto registration fees, increase taxes on diesel fuel and shift $250 million from other state programs. It would also give Northern Virginia governments power to raise taxes and fees that would generate about $400 million every year locally for roads and transit.

"I've been so desperate for transportation, I'd be willing to vote for somebody's grandma with a shovel, a bag of cement and an attitude if she's willing to work on the roads," said Del. Dave W. Marsden (Fairfax), one of the Democrats who voted for the bill.

Kaine applauded the House action, calling it "an important step," but said he remains concerned about some of its provisions and will continue to work with legislators to improve it. "Virginians deserve our best efforts to reach a common-sense solution that is comprehensive, long-term, and fair," Kaine said in a statement.

GOP lawmakers were almost giddy as they approved the plan after more than a year of stalemate. One Republican yelled, "Rock-n-roll!" as they prepared to vote. Another reflected on the unusual bipartisan spirit of the day, saying, "Kumbaya."

But the optimism that existed when Republican leaders announced the compromise at the beginning of last month is now tempered by the reality that the plan faces bipartisan opposition in the Senate.

A bitterly divided Senate had been preparing to battle over competing transportation plans -- the GOP compromise and a proposal that would impose a 5 percent sales tax on gasoline. On Tuesday, senators abandoned both, avoiding a legislative war among their members and leaving it to the House to keep alive hopes for a transportation deal before the session adjourns.

"We now await our friends in the House in sending a bill over," Sen. H. Russell Potts Jr. (R-Winchester), who sponsored the gas tax bill, said early in the day.

The House bill, which was sponsored by Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford), has had far more success than its Senate counterpart, passing out of a House committee easily. Unlike in previous years, the speaker has kept his Republican caucus largely united around the idea that reaching a transportation deal is critical this year, when all 140 members of the legislature will face voters. Fifty-two House Republicans and an independent also voted for the bill.

"We have fulfilled our end of the bargain," Howell said, calling the bill the "last chance" for a transportation deal this year. "We had a lot of good negotiations with the Senate, and we got our bill out."

That unity has been missing in the usually cohesive Senate, where Sen. John H. Chichester (R-Northumberland) opposes the GOP compromise negotiated by his closest allies in the chamber. The decision to send the Potts bill to committee avoided a divisive fight on the Senate floor.

Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City), one of those allies, referred to the strain of the disagreement with Chichester over transportation.

"It has been both politically and personally strenuous on many of us," Norment said. "Contentious words were exchanged. Contentious actions were exchanged. It was just not healthy for this body."

In the House, Democratic support for the transportation measure came only after several members of the party objected to a provision that would shift $250 million from the state's general fund into transportation. The general fund pays for teachers, health care, colleges, public safety, and other programs and services.

Several Democrats predicted those programs will suffer when a lagging economy forces lawmakers to choose between them and transportation.

"This debate is about who pays," House Minority Leader Brian J. Moran (D-Alexandria) said. "I hope it's not education, public safety and the environment."

At one point, the Republicans begged their Democratic colleagues to support the bill, saying it is the last opportunity for getting a transportation plan approved.

"This bill is the only thing left. It is the only thing that has any hope," said Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax). Albo listed a dozen transportation projects that cannot be funded without additional revenue, including extending Metro to Dulles, widening Interstate 66 and the Capital Beltway, and buying more rail cars for Metro and Virginia Railway Express.

"I beg you not to look at this as some kind of [campaign] brochure you are going to want to send out next year," Albo said. "Look for solutions. This is a compromise and a solution, and it delivers and it is the only hope we have."