Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), left, talks with Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.) before a news conference on the highway bill. (By Ray Lustig – The Washington Post)

By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 19, 1998; Page A01

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement yesterday on a $200 billion highway and mass transit bill, clearing the way for President Clinton's signature on what would be the largest increase in public works spending in the nation's history.

The behemoth six-year reauthorization bill spends billions in every state to upgrade highways and bridges. It also is packed with much of the specially targeted "pork barrel" projects demanded by the House, as well as Senate favorites such as money to encourage development of a high-speed magnetic levitation train system.

The measure will provide the full $900 million sought by Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) toward a replacement for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge – though the proposed 12-lane bridge to carry Capital Beltway traffic between Prince George's County and Alexandria will require an additional $700 million from federal and state sources. The compromise legislation does not include language that would have imposed a national drunken-driving standard, as the Senate and the Clinton administration had strongly advocated.

For the first time, federal gasoline tax revenue pouring into the highway trust fund will be used exclusively for highway and bridge construction and not partially diverted for other government spending or to help balance the budget. The net effect will be to boost overall transportation spending by more than 40 percent, with annual highway spending soaring from an average of $20 billion to $28 billion and mass transit spending increasing from $4.5 billion to $5.5 billion.

"For too long we have neglected our nation's infrastructure and now we are paying the price," said House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) in announcing that virtually all the major issues between the House and Senate had been resolved. "We are spending too much time in traffic, too many people are dying on bad roads and too much highway money has been siphoned off for other federal spending. Soon, as a result of this bill, that all stops."

Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, added that the compromise represents "a fiscally responsible, forward-looking, equitable approach to meeting the transportation needs of the 21st century."

House and Senate leaders are pressing for final action on the bill before Congress departs at the end of the week for a Memorial Day recess. Congress missed a May 1 deadline for passing new highway legislation, which prompted nervous warnings from governors and state highway officials that many projects will be scrubbed this summer unless authorization is forthcoming.

The White House last week threatened a veto if the new highway spending proved excessive, but administration officials worked closely with congressional negotiators over the weekend to iron out differences and the president is likely to sign the final legislation. Office of Management and Budget spokeswoman Linda Ricci said yesterday that while the administration would prefer to see a larger portion of the total spent on mass transit, "People do think things are moving in the right direction."

While both sides could claim substantial victories after two weeks of intense talks to reconcile their competing plans, the House prevailed in knocking out a high-profile, Senate-passed provision that would have denied 10 percent of future highway funding to states that refused to adopt the stringent ".08" drunken-driving standard now enforced by 15 states.

Chafee, Clinton and highway safety groups including Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) made passage of the .08 provision a prominent issue. But stiff resistance from the House Republicans and Democrats, and a well-financed lobbying effort by the alcoholic beverage and restaurant industries torpedoed the provision in conference. Chafee's position was further weakened during the talks because of personal opposition by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) to imposing a new mandatory requirement.

Over the weekend, Chafee went along with a compromise offered by Shuster to provide $500 million of incentives to states that voluntarily adopt the .08 measure. The House also accepted Senate proposals for imposing penalties on states that refuse to adopt laws against driving with open containers of alcoholic beverages or laws cracking down on repeat drunken-driving offenders.

While clearly disappointed by the decision to knock out the .08 requirement, Chafee said the incentive program represented "tremendous progress" in combating drunken driving. But advocates of the .08 requirement, including Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), described the decision as a major setback and argued that incentives have proved largely ineffective in the war on drunken driving.

"The agreement is a clear victory for the powerful liquor lobby and the decision needlessly delays the passage of .08 and will cost thousands of lives," Lowey said.

Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, said she would urge the president to veto the bill unless it were changed, but the White House has indicated that it was not prepared to block the major highway bill over the .08 dispute.

The highway legislation has generated substantial controversy on Capitol Hill over the past year because of the huge financial and economic stakes for state and local governments and the construction industry – and because of its impact on budget policy.

While the White House and congressional leaders agreed to substantial increases in highway spending as part of last year's balanced-budget agreement, Shuster and his GOP and Democratic allies in the House and Senate mounted what has proved to be a highly successful crusade to extract more spending – to be offset by cuts in other government programs – and to make the highway trust fund "inviolate" to raids by advocates of other programs.

The House- and Senate-passed versions were relatively close in overall spending – $217 billion in the House compared with $214 billion in the Senate. The final compromise of approximately $200 billion was reached to pacify the administration's demand for lower spending and because of the difficulty in finding matching spending cuts.

The House bill included $9.3 billion of funds earmarked for 1,467 individual highway and bridge projects in selected congressional districts. The Senate bill, by contrast, had few earmarked projects but plenty of special provisions that would funnel billions of dollars worth of projects to favored states and special interests. Chafee, for example, inserted a nearly $1 billion provision to develop and construct magnetic levitation trains – a measure that has survived largely intact.

As part of the compromise, the House will retain all its earmarked projects but has agreed to scale back total funding for those projects from $9.3 billion to $7.7 billion. The Senate will use the $2 billion of savings for pork-barrel projects of its own or other purposes.

Negotiators said there were some loose ends to tie up before final action this week, including fine-tuning a new formula for allocating highway funds that will ensure every state would receive at least 91 percent of the gasoline tax revenue it contributed to the highway trust fund.