House Passes $217-Billion Highway Bill

The House on Wednesday night overwhelmingly approved one of the biggest public works bills in history, a $217-billion road-building bonanza that fiscal conservatives say makes a mockery of the Republican crusade to control government spending.

The bill, which passed 337 to 80, would channel about $3 billion a year to car-dependent California over the next six years--a 52% increase over the state’s current annual allocation--for a cornucopia of highway and transit projects.

“This is legislation to rebuild America so we have a 21st century transportation system in the 21st century,” said Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.). “From New York to California, America is growing and prosperous, but our infrastructure is crumbling.”

The measure, laced with hundreds of local projects sought by individual members of Congress, attracted overwhelming support, despite conservative complaints that it violates GOP promises to keep federal spending in check and end Washington’s tradition of pork-barrel politics.

The House bill also handed a victory to the liquor and restaurant lobbies, which had bitterly opposed an effort to use the measure to impose a strict national drunken-driving standard. Although an amendment to require states to set the allowable blood-alcohol content for drivers at 0.08% or face loss of federal highway funds had been easily approved by the Senate, House GOP leaders did not even allow it to come to a vote.

The final form of the highway bill--which finances repair and construction of roads, mass transit, bridges, bike paths, bus garages and all manner of infrastructure--will be written by a House-Senate conference committee, which will meet to iron out differences between the two chambers’ versions.

The Senate’s bill, passed in March, totals $214 billion and includes about $1 billion less for California than the House bill, according to an analysis by the staff of Rep. Jay C. Kim (R-Diamond Bar), head of the California delegation’s task force on transportation.

The House version provides 43% more for transportation programs over the next six years than Congress provided in the last six years. That is about $26 billion more than had been allowed under last year’s balanced budget agreement between the GOP-controlled Congress and President Clinton.

Proponents said that spending hike is justified because the nation’s roads and bridges are in bad repair and improvements are essential to the economic health of the nation and the safety of its roads.

“There is a fundamental difference between spending tax dollars to buy assets and pouring money down a rat hole,” Shuster said.

Proponents also said the bill is not a budget buster, mainly because the extra $26 billion will be offset by cuts in programs in other areas.

However, the bill does not specify what programs will be cut to offset the spending increase. That is part of the reason the bill is opposed by Clinton, who said the new spending would jeopardize the balanced budget agreement and would make it harder to finance education and other programs that are his priorities.

The vast majority of the bill’s highway and transit money is distributed by formula to states. But much of the measure’s political appeal--and the controversy about it--centers on the 5% of the funds earmarked for specific projects in congressional districts all over the country. The measure earmarks about $9 billion for more than 1,400 highway demonstration projects and more for bus and transit projects.

Some of the earmarks seem a far cry from asphalt and concrete. For instance, the bill includes $3 million to fund a public television documentary about the importance of infrastructure. It provides $500,000 to Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to study how to improve access to the facility. And it includes $30 million for the Smithsonian Institution for transportation-related exhibits.

Larding legislation with pet projects has a long tradition in Congress, but critics said the highway bill represents pork barreling on an unprecedented scale.

“It is doubtful that well over 1,400 projects are deserving of federal attention,” said Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), who noted that the last major transportation bill in 1991 included only 539 earmarked projects.

GOP critics of the bill--including House Budget Committee Chairman John R. Kasich (R-Ohio)--complained that the measure flies in the face of all the conservative principles the party stood for when it took control of Congress in the 1994 elections.

“When we came here and became a majority, we said we were going to change things,” said Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.). This bill is “business as usual.”

The debate produced the unusual spectacle of liberal Democrats lecturing conservative Republicans about fiscal responsibility.

“This is just too big,” said California Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento). “This is a vote that’s going to shape the entire federal budget.”

But an amendment to strip out $11.3 billion in earmarked projects went down in flames, 337 to 79.

Few states have as much at stake in the highway bill as California, with its growing population and 25 million registered vehicles.

“Thank God it’s passed and how soon can we get the money?” said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County. “This will help us meet some already critical infrastructure needs.”

Among the provisions of particular interest to California, the bill includes:

* $570 million over six years for California and other states on the U.S.-Mexico border to connect freeways to border crossings.

* $330 million for the state to help cut air pollution with carpool lanes and other air-quality projects.

* An increase in the state’s share of transit funding, up from $380 million a year (13.3% of total funding) to $650 million a year (14% of total funding).

* 141 earmarked highway projects in the state. One of the largest is $47 million for various improvements to the Alameda Corridor in Los Angeles County. The project, currently under construction, is a high-speed corridor intended to speed traffic between the region’s manufacturing areas and its ports.

In refusing to allow a vote on an amendment to require states to set the stricter standard for determining when a driver is legally drunk, GOP leaders sidestepped one of the most controversial issues surrounding the highway bill. California and 14 other states already have the tougher drunken-driving standard, but other states use a more lenient blood-alcohol limit of 0.1%

The restaurant and liquor lobbies bitterly opposed the provision as an unwarranted attack on social drinkers who, they argue, pose no menace to highway safety. It was also opposed by conservative Republicans, who said states should have the right to set their own standards without facing the outsized threat of losing all federal highway money.

The issue will be settled in conference with the Senate.

On another emotional issue, the House rejected an amendment to abolish a program that aims to send at least 10% of all highway construction business to firms owned by women and minorities.

Conservatives criticized the set-aside program as an unfair form of reverse discrimination. “It’s very simple,” said House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). “The government of the United States should not discriminate against any American.”

Proponents said the program sets goals, not quotas, and is a legitimate form of help to disadvantaged firms. In the end, 29 Republicans deserted the GOP leadership and joined with all but 3 of the House’s Democrat members to defeat the amendment.

Times staff writers Faye Fiore and Tom Shultz contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Road Work Ahead (Orange County edition, A23)

More than $61 million from the public works bill will be used for construction on Orange County’s roads. What’s planned and amounts (in millions) earmarked for county projects:

Location: Amount

* Rail grade crossings San Gabriel River Freeway (I-605): $20.1 and Riverside Freeway (91), Los Angeles and Orange counties

* Sound walls along Imperial Highway, Yorba Linda: 14.5

* Freeway access at Gene Autry Way, Anaheim: 9.0

* Upgrade Bristol Street, Santa Ana: 7.0

* Parking lots, pedestrian bridge, Yorba Linda: 3.8

* Construct freeway interchange, San Clemente: 3.0

* Build bridge at Camino Capistrano/Cabot Road, Mission Viejo: 2.0

* Reconstruct interchange Harbor Boulevard/Garden Grove Freeway (22): 2.0

Source: House Transportation Committee