Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2003 | 11:04 a.m.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday he doubts Congress will reauthorize a comprehensive transportation bill this year because of arguments over funding levels and attempts to gut federal clean air and endangered species laws.
The Transportation Equity Act, enacted in June 1998 to provide highway and transit funding to the 50 states, expires Sept. 30. Reid told the 2003 Fall Transportation Conference attendees at Cox Pavilion on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus that he would support reauthorization of the transportation funding for at least five more years.
But, Reid said, President Bush and his fellow Republicans have been unwilling to provide a reasonable level of funding for transportation projects under the proposed new bill, known as TEA-3.
"I'm not sure we'll get a bill this year, at least not a five-year bill," Reid, the Senate minority whip and a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told the gathering, made up largely of state and local transportation officials.
"We're getting a tremendously low bill figure for the TEA-3 bill," he said. "The president is spending a lot of money except where it's needed."
The Bush administration has proposed $190 billion to be spent through 2009, but transportation industry groups have been calling for at least $375 billion.
The original bill called for appropriation of $218 billion from fiscal 1998 through the current fiscal year. Nevada received $1.05 billion during that period, mostly for highway improvements, interstate maintenance and surface transportation programs, according to data on the U.S. Department of Transportation website. Nevada's share this year is $195 million.
Earlier this year the Southern Nevada Regional Transportation Commission approved a wish list should the bill make it though Congress. The RTC list includes funding for Las Vegas Beltway interchanges at U.S. 95, Summerlin Parkway, Interstate 15 and the airport connector, as well as widening of Interstate 15 from U.S. 95 to the Speedway interchange, widening of U.S. 95 from Rainbow Boulevard to Kyle Canyon, and widening of U.S. 95 from I-15 to Boulder Highway south of Henderson.
While Congress returns to work on Sept. 2, Reid said he didn't think there would be enough time left this year to debate TEA-3.
"We've missed our opportunity this year," Reid said. "We should have already had it reported out of committee and we need to find floor time, which will be difficult to do. It would take at least a week on the floor."
One problem, Reid said, is that lawmakers are preoccupied with other issues that will likely eat up time on the Senate floor.
"We have nine appropriations bills to pass," Reid said. "We have voted on one judge nine times and the vote hasn't changed. We'll spend a lot of time on partial-birth abortion and that hasn't changed. This takes away a lot of time from substantive issues."
A Senate Republican aide said the leadership is certainly working hard to get the bill done and trying to get the Senate to take it up once members get back from the August recess.
Even if the Senate had time to debate TEA-3, Reid said, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has indicated he wants to link transportation funding to the elimination of clean air and endangered species laws.
Reid said he would support efforts to streamline those laws but would oppose any attempt to "simply do away with" them. Critics say those laws needlessly delay construction projects and amount to red tape. But Reid said Republican efforts to eliminate those laws threaten to delay passage of a comprehensive transportation bill.
An Inhofe aide said only "environmental streamlining" is included in the bill and that there is no mention of the Endangered Species Act. Any changes mentioned in the bill have bipartisan support and stem from recommendations by the General Accounting Office, the aide said.
On a related subject, Reid said he would support increases in federal gasoline taxes to reflect inflation. Those taxes provide revenue for transportation projects.
"There is some talk of indexing the gas tax to inflation," Reid said. "Some members of Congress get hung up on raising it even a penny."
Reid also spoke in glowing terms about the need to fund magnetic levitation high-speed trains, which can reach 300 miles an hour. There are proposals to build the trains from Las Vegas to Primm with hopes of eventually running them to Southern California.
Reid said that because the technology has already been studied, the time has come for the federal government to fund actual projects. He said Japan and Germany have a big jump on the United States in this form of transportation.
"We've really missed the boat," he said. "Magnetic levitation will come to America, but we will have to import most of the stuff."
The two-day transportation conference at UNLV ends today with work sessions that will include updates on the Las Vegas Monorail, Interstate 215/Interstate 515 interchange project and the Hoover Dam Bypass project.
Sun reporter
Suzanne Struglinski contributed to this story.
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