Conferees Reach Accord on Transit Bill : Transportation: The plan would pump $151 billion into economy over 6 years. Some key issues are still not resolved.

House and Senate negotiators agreed Thursday on the broad outlines of sweeping transportation legislation that would radically rewrite federal highway and mass transit programs and pump tens of billions of dollars into the economy.

Even though key issues remain unresolved, the agreement on a six-year program that would provide $151 billion for roads, bridges, bus fleets and rail systems substantially increases the likelihood that Congress will finish work on the package before its scheduled Thanksgiving recess.

“I think it is a major step forward,” said Rep. Robert A. Roe (D-N.J.), chairman of the 92-member conference committee that is working out the differences between the House and Senate bills.

“We’re under way,” added Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), the chief author of the Senate bill.

The program announced Thursday would earmark $32 billion for transit projects and $119 billion for highways. The funding agreed on by negotiators--substantially higher than that authorized in existing law--would depend on the extension through the 1999 fiscal year of a 2.5-cent surcharge on the federal gasoline tax that was enacted last year. The tax is now 14 cents a gallon.

Existing transportation programs, which have remained largely unchanged since the interstate highway era began 35 years ago, expired Sept. 30.

The Bush Administration has threatened to veto the package, largely because the House bill calls for spending more than $5 billion on special “demonstration projects” in members’ districts and because it would establish an 80-20 federal-state matching ratio rather than the 60-40 ratio favored by the Administration. But congressional leaders have said in the last few days that they think a veto is unlikely.

Moynihan announced Thursday that Senate negotiators had agreed to the overall funding levels and program length proposed by the House in legislation it approved late last month.

In addition, Moynihan said that the Senate conferees would sign off on a House proposal that would guarantee that every state get back in federal transportation aid at least 90% of the money its residents pay in gasoline taxes, which largely support highway and transit programs. Existing law provides for a so-called “guaranteed minimum” of 85%.

Negotiators agreed also on 35 noncontroversial items, including provisions that would encourage states to adopt mandatory motorcycle helmet laws and provide special funding for construction of timber bridges.

The next major issue the conferees are expected to tackle when they convene today and over the weekend is the shape of the new federal aid programs that would be created by the legislation.

The House bill, for example, would establish a $37.5-billion program to improve and maintain a 155,000-mile National Highway System that would include the existing 43,000 miles of interstate highways. States could be permitted to divert up to 25% of the National Highway System funds to transit projects.

The centerpiece of the Senate bill, on the other hand, is a flexible $45-billion Surface Transportation Program that could finance either highway or mass transit projects.