Senate Steers $5-Billion Bonus to Mass Transit

Senate leaders agreed Thursday to boost federal funding of mass transit programs by an additional $5 billion over six years to help cities buy new buses and finance construction projects such as Los Angeles’ Metro Rail.

The extra transit funds were negotiated behind closed doors as the full Senate continued to debate a $173-billion, six-year highway spending bill. The measure could pass the Senate as early as next week, with House action expected to follow shortly.

The transit breakthrough was announced at a Capitol press conference by a bipartisan group of senators from states with large metropolitan areas. It was blessed by both the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate and will be incorporated into the highway funding bill.

“The additional transit funding is good news for the nation’s infrastructure, good news for our environment and vital to our cities,” said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), one of the architects of the accord.

The agreement essentially would double the amount of new money earmarked for mass transit, bringing the total to $41.3 billion over six years. That represents an increase of nearly $10 billion over the existing $31.5-billion funding level, according to Sen. Alfonse M. D’Amato (R-N.Y.), chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over mass transit funding.

Of the additional $5 billion, California would receive several hundred million dollars, according to aides to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

California would get about $253 million of an additional $2 billion that would be allocated under the terms of a previously determined formula, Boxer’s aides said. The remaining $3 billion would be dispersed across the country by the secretary of Transportation as “discretionary grants,” and California could also expect “a large share” of those funds, they said.

The amount of new funds that would be allocated to specific projects, such as Southern California’s troubled Metro Rail system, has not been determined.

Metropolitan Transit Authority officials in Los Angeles had no immediate comment.

The proposed new funding was hailed by Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.), the Banking Committee’s top Democrat. “Our highways have become so gridlocked that they have become parking lots. And this agreement moves America forward by committing additional transit funding to move more people more efficiently through viable transportation alternatives.”

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) vowed to make cuts elsewhere in the budget to free funds for the additional mass transit funding. “That’s not going to be difficult,” he said.

According to D’Amato, the additional $5 billion would be divided this way:

* $2.5 billion for new starts, including extensions to existing systems.

* $1.2 billion for communities with 50,000 or more residents.

* $250 million to communities with fewer than 50,000 residents.

* $500 million for purchasing and maintaining bus fleets.

* $500 million for rail systems.

* $40 million to buy vehicles that provide transportation for the elderly and disabled.

In other action on the highway bill, the Senate approved an amendment that would impose a nationwide ban on open alcohol containers in moving vehicles. But it rejected another amendment that would have outlawed drive-through alcohol sales.

Debate on the alcohol-related amendments was strikingly emotional, with Sens. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) recalling their own parents, who were killed by drunk drivers. At one point, tears streamed from Bumpers’ face as he spoke.

The two amendments were taken up a day after the Senate voted, 62 to 32, to set a tough national standard for determining when a driver is legally drunk. That vote would require states to adopt a blood-alcohol level of .08% or forfeit millions of dollars in federal highway funds. California and 14 other states already enforce the .08% level and thus would not be affected.

The open-container ban was approved by a 52-47 vote, while the drive-through amendment was defeated by a 56-43 vote.

The same financial penalty would apply to states that do not comply with the open-container ban, which was sponsored by Dorgan, whose mother was killed by a drunk driver speeding through downtown Bismarck, N.D., in 1986.

“In 22 states it is legal for passengers in a car to be drinking, and in five states it is perfectly legal for the driver of a vehicle to have one hand on the steering wheel and the other wrapped around an open bottle of whiskey,” said Dorgan. Two years ago, his proposal was defeated, 52 to 48.

According to Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who sponsored the amendment banning drive-through purchases, such sales are legal in 26 states--and their alcohol-related traffic fatalities are 14% higher than in the other 24 states.

Later, the Senate was confronted with another controversy when Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered an amendment to kill a Department of Transportation program that gives 10% of highway contracts to construction companies owned by women and minorities.

McConnell said that his proposal targets just one of 160 “preference” programs run by the federal government.

“Congress now has a historic opportunity to take a small step toward equal protection for all citizens,” he said. The department’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program, McConnell added, is “a race-based quota, and it’s unfair, unconstitutional and just plain un-American.”

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) rejected McConnell’s contention, saying the program “has nothing to do with quotas. All it sets is some targets, some goals. There are no negative consequences if we fail to meet the goals.”

Some Republicans also took issue with McConnell’s amendment. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) said the program “helps hundreds of thousands of people who are disenfranchised and disadvantaged.”

A vote on McConnell’s amendment is expected today.

Times staff writer Richard J. Simon in Los Angeles contributed to this story.