Washington – Breaking two years’ worth of political logjams Friday, lawmakers packed $24 billion in special projects into the first transportation bill approved in two years and approved a long-stalled energy bill that was nearly double the size proposed by the Bush administration.
The transportation bill included $5.9 million for a Vermont snowmobile trail and $3 million for a documentary about Alaska infrastructure.
The legislation took nearly two years to complete and comes close to the $284 billion cap set by President Bush. Lawmakers were eager to deliver the heaping platter of road-construction dollars, mass-transit support and safety assistance. The package is worth $286.5 billion over six years, a 30 percent increase over the $218 billion program that expired in September 2003.
Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, declared when the House passed the bill 412-8 Friday: “This day is a truly momentous day for users of our nation’s transportation infrastructure.” The Senate passed the bill 91-4.
One of the bill’s biggest winners is Young’s state. It is awarded $941 million for 119 special projects, according to an analysis by the government watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
The group found that Young helped to secure $231 million for a bridge in Anchorage to be named Don Young’s Way; $223 million for a bridge to Ketchikan, an island with 50 residents; and $15 million for a Juneau access road, dubbed the Black Ice Highway by group analyst Erich Zimmermann because “that’s all you’ll see in the winter if this project is built.”
The group found 6,376 special projects in the 1,752-page bill.
California, Illinois and New York received the largest sums, with Alaska ranking fourth.
Next were Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Oklahoma – the latter being the home state of Republican James Inhofe, the bill’s chief Senate negotiator.
The energy bill doles out billions in tax breaks to encourage more energy production and efficiency.
The Senate voted 74-26 to approve the bill after years of failed efforts and calls from the Bush administration to pass energy legislation. The House approved the legislation Friday, and the White House has said the president will sign it.
The measure provides tax breaks and other incentives to encourage new nuclear plants, cleaner burning coal facilities and production of more oil and natural gas.
It also offers incentives to produce energy from wind and other renewable sources and to make homes and office buildings more energy-efficient.
The bill seeks to improve reliability of the electrical grid by giving tax benefits for investment in transmission lines and allowing for enforceable rules governing the grid’s operation.
But analysts from across the political spectrum said the bill does little to reduce U.S. oil imports, lower prices or deal with other energy issues facing the country. They said $14.5 billion in tax breaks and other incentives in the bill will accomplish little more than transferring money to energy companies, some of which already are reaping huge profits.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who shepherded the measure through the Senate, said that years from now, the country will be better off because of the legislation. “I can tell you, we will be safer,” Domenici said.
