The Latest on the Highway Bill...

the text below is from an article posted at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?.../w164151D91.DTL

it's the bill that includes a provision allowing states a little more flexibility in who can use the fed-funded HOV lanes (incl. hybrids)... 8) (if they ever pass it!)

Congress Extends Highway Bill an 8th Time
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, June 30, 2005

(06-30) 20:43 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Congress on Thursday extended an old highway spending bill for the eighth time :x as House and Senate negotiators continued to struggle over how best to rewrite the bill that expired nearly two years ago.

With the seventh extension expiring Thursday, the House and Senate both approved, without debate, an extension through July 19. That action was necessary for funding to continue uninterrupted to the states and to federal transportation programs.

The last highway and transit act, funded at $218 billion over six years, expired in September, 2003. Shadowed by a White House threat to veto any bill that it considers too expensive, the House and Senate have been unable to find common ground on a new six-year plan.

This year the House approved a $284 billion bill, the level the administration said was the maximum it would accept, while the Senate passed a $295 billion measure.

Negotiators from the two chambers are near agreement on a total funding level of some $286.5 billion, aides said, but are still talking about how that money is most equitably divided among the states. On Thursday, the two sides also were discussing funding for transit programs, which comprise about 18 percent of the total.

Senate negotiators, meeting behind closed doors, agreed to stand by their position that transit programs, including money for buses, rail and ferry facilities, ought to receive 18.48 percent of the total. The House has proposed a slightly smaller percentage.

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Re: Congress Extends Highway Bill an 8th Time (GRRRRR!)

the latest on the bill from the Boston Globe:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washingt...portation_bill/

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Congress reaches a compromise on transportation bill
$286.5b package seeks to improve roads over 6 years
By Jim Abrams, Associated Press | July 2, 2005

WASHINGTON -- House and Senate negotiators have agreed to a level of spending for highway and transit project that is acceptable to the White House. The deal clears a major hurdle in the two-year effort to develop a new federal transportation plan.

Negotiators ''have been working on a compromise for a transportation bill that would make much-needed improvements to federal highways," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said in a midnight speech on the House floor Thursday. ''Tonight they came to an agreement . . . to move that bill forward."

Hastert provided no details. Congressional aides said the two sides have agreed on spending $286.5 billion over the six-year period ending in September 2009. The aides said the administration would accept that level.

Yesterday, President Bush signed an extension of the old highway program for the eighth time since it expired in 2003. The program was funded at $218 billion over six years.

Congress has been unable to come up with a new bill. That is partly because lawmakers sought a significant increase in spending for transportation projects, drawing a veto threat from the White House over the cost of the bill.

This year the White House has warned that President Bush would veto any bill that went over $284 billion, the level approved in the House bill passed last March.

The Senate in May passed a $295 billion bill, with its sponsors saying they had found ways to increase revenues, by cracking down on tax fraud and other measures, so that it would not add to the federal deficit. Money for highway and transit spending is derived from the highway trust fund, which comes from the federal tax of 18.4 cents a gallon that drivers pay at the gasoline pump.

The latest extension goes through July 19, giving negotiators several weeks after they return from the Independence Day recess to work out details, including the formula that determines how much states get back in federal grants in respect to their contributions to the trust fund.