Posted on 05/15/2003 5:09:42 PM PDT by fightinJAG
U.S. lawmakers say Bush transport plan too small Reuters, 05.15.03, 5:52 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers pushing for billions of dollars in highway and transit funding this year on Thursday told Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta that a White House proposal fell far short of the nation's needs.
Mineta earlier this week unveiled President Bush's $247 billion, six-year plan, calling it the largest transport funding proposal in U.S. history. A similar program dubbed "TEA-21" that expires this September provided $218 billion over six years.
"Dollar-wise it looks great, but if you look at what you can do with the dollars you're proposing, it's less than TEA-21," Republican Rep. Don Young, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, told Mineta at a hearing on the bill.
While Young's committee is still fleshing out the details of its own bill, it already has a bipartisan agreement to seek $375 billion over six years and pay for it with an increase in the fuel tax paid by motorists.
Republicans and Democrats alike told Mineta that the administration's funding level was too low given the billions of dollars lost annually to the economy due to clogged highways.
Young, who said the purchasing power of the fuel-tax capitalized Highway Trust Fund had been undermined by failure to index the tax to inflation in previous years, said he was determined that this bill would have inflation indexing.
"Otherwise we just get further behind," Young said. "Congestion is one of the number one problems that affects everybody in this country, everybody."
Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service
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