Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 21, 1995 TAG: 9509210081
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Under the House bill, overwhelmingly approved 419-7, states will have the power to set their own highway speed limits and establish rules regarding the use of motorcycle helmets. The measure also would exempt thousands of drivers and trucks - including small trucks and some drivers transporting agricultural supplies - from federal truck-safety regulations.
As a gesture to safety advocates, the lawmakers narrowly approved a ``zero-tolerance'' measure that denies states some federal highway money if they do not enact laws essentially banning drinking by drivers under 21.
The speed-limit and zero-tolerance measures, similar to legislation passed by the Senate in June, were included in a highway funding bill that gives states more than $5.2 billion for road construction and repair for fiscal 1996, which begins Oct. 1.
The move to let states set their own highway speeds was vigorously opposed by the Clinton administration and highway safety advocates. They warned of significant increase in highway deaths, which totaled 35,747 in 1993, the latest figures available from the federal highway safety agency. In that year, there were more than two million highway injuries.
Passage of the highway bill came despite an impassioned plea by Rep. Nick Joe Rahall, D-W.Va., that lawmakers strip its speed-limit repeal provision.
Rahall argued that eliminating the national speed limit ``would turn our nation's highways into killing fields ... This is not a matter of states' rights, it's a matter of human rights.''
Even the bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Bud Shuster, R-Pa., voted for the Rahall amendment.
But the overwhelming sentiment among the Republican-controlled House was that it is time to let the states decide such matters.
Reps. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County, and Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, all voted against the amendment.
by CNB