Senate OKs $58-Billion Transit Bill

Congress shipped President Clinton a compromise $58-billion transportation package Friday that would set a national drunken-driving standard and lavish pre-election highway projects on every state.

The legislation, for the 2001 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, sailed through the House, 344 to 50, and the Senate, 78 to 10. Clinton is expected to sign the measure, the fifth of the 13 annual spending bills for the new year to have cleared Congress.

Beginning in 2004, the legislation would gradually withhold up to 8% of federal highway funds from states that fail to drop their drunken-driving standard to 0.08% blood-alcohol content. Clinton has said the lower limit would save 500 lives annually, out of the 15,000 highway deaths each year linked to alcohol.

“The Senate should be very proud of its efforts today to spare 500 families from that horrifying phone call that often comes in the dark of night,” said Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), one of the measure’s chief authors.

Opponents, including the restaurant and alcohol industries, say the measure would penalize social drinkers while ignoring the bigger problem of repeat offenders who drink heavily.

Eighteen states and the District of Columbia already have 0.08% laws, and in Massachusetts, a level of 0.08% is considered evidence but not proof of impairment. Thirty-one states define drunken driving as 0.10% blood-alcohol content.

Transit Projects Fueled Passage

The measure’s overwhelming passage was fueled by its scores of road, mass transit and aviation projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars for districts from coast to coast.

To accommodate that, the bill was $7.3 billion more than last year’s spending, $3.3 billion more than Clinton requested and almost $3 billion higher than earlier versions passed by the House and Senate.

That made room for $1.97 billion for specific highway projects that neither the Senate nor House had approved earlier, including $600 million for a federally owned Potomac River bridge outside Washington.

There were also separate $100-million projects for West Virginia, Alabama and Mississippi--home states, respectively, of Sen. Robert C. Byrd, top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee; GOP Sen. Richard C. Shelby, chairman of the Appropriations transportation subcommittee; and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.

Even House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), who rails daily against Clinton’s demands for extra spending, couldn’t resist, winning $6 million for road and airport improvements in his Houston-area district.

IRS, Other Agencies Funded

The transportation bill also included $348 million for the Internal Revenue Service, counterterrorism and other programs aimed at satisfying Clinton’s demands for a separate $33-billion measure financing the Treasury Department and Congress’ own operations.

That bill, which already cleared the House, should now pass the Senate and get Clinton’s signature, Democrats said.

That measure also would repeal the 3% federal excise tax on telephone use and would clear the way for lawmakers to receive a $3,800 pay raise in January to $145,100.

In other developments Friday:

* Underlining the GOP desire to finish Congress’ budget work and go home for reelection campaigns, Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), a sponsor of a $23.6-billion energy-water measure, said Republicans will remove the provision that Clinton opposes so the bill can be enacted. Clinton objects to the bill’s call to block plans to let the Missouri River ebb and flow with the seasons, which has set environmentalists and upriver recreation interests against downstream farmers and barge shippers.

* The House approved a bill doubling the application fees for temporary visas for high-tech foreign workers to $1,000 from $500. The fee increase is expected to raise millions of dollars to be used to help pay for job training and education programs for American workers. The education provisions were part of legislation passed earlier this week increasing the availability of temporary work visas for foreign high-tech workers.