Transportation Funding Bill Goes to Reagan

Congress sent a $10.8-billion transportation spending bill for 1989 to the White House on Wednesday, several days after lawmakers made it veto-proof by removing language airline labor unions had championed.

The House gave final congressional approval to the measure on a voice vote shortly after the Senate signed off on the bill with a voice vote of its own. President Reagan was expected to sign the legislation by Saturday, the start of the 1989 federal fiscal year.

Last week, House-Senate negotiators sliced language sought by labor out of the bill because Reagan had said it would cause him to veto the entire measure. That provision would have required airlines to pay benefits to employees whose jobs are lost or whose incomes are diminished due to mergers.

Besides providing $10.8 billion in new spending for fiscal 1989, the appropriations bill would allow the government to spend another $14.7 billion on transportation programs, money that would come from various federal taxes on fuel and air travel.

The appropriations bill would funnel $3.2 billion to mass transit, $12.2 billion to highway programs, $6.3 billion to aviation and $2.8 billion to the Coast Guard. Among other things, it provides $584 million in grants for Amtrak, the national passenger railroad.

The legislation also contains sections that would block the construction of a shopping mall in Manassas, Va., near the site of two important Civil War battles.