DATE: Friday, October 31, 1997              TAG: 9710310008

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   53 lines

FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION BILL CLEAR THE ROADBLOCK STATES SOON WILL BE HURTING IF FEDERAL HIGHWAY DOLLARS ARE HELD UP.

A vital $145 billion, six-year transportation bill has hit a roadblock in Congress. The consequences could be costly in delayed highway projects and lost jobs. The nation's governors told the Senate this week that shutting off federal transportation funds could be ``disastrous'' to states.

In Hampton Roads, projects to widen Interstate 64 in Hampton and Newport News, scheduled to be advertised for bids this summer, could be put off if no bill is approved early next year. Multiply those projects by hundreds more across Virginia and the nation, and the severity of the situation becomes clear.

The previous six-year transportation bill, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), expired Sept. 30. In the Senate, Democrats and some moderate Republicans are blocking consideration of its successor, saying they won't permit it to come to the floor until Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) agrees to look at campaign finance reform.

The House recently passed a six-month extension of ISTEA, but Lott doesn't like it.

Three things should happen:

Democrats should realize the significance of the transportation bill and stop blocking it. Congress will never get anything done if it continues the partisan practice of mixing unrelated issues. Campaign finance reform is overdue, but for so are federal transportation dollars.

At minimum, Lott should agree to a six-month extension of ISTEA to tide states over. He has said he wouldn't, but he seems to be reconsidering.

The extension should contain elements of a bill crafted by Sen. John W.Warner that ends a major funding inequity in the first ISTEA. Currently, Virginia receives 79 cents for each transportation dollar it pays to the federal government. Under Warner's bill, no state would receive less than 90 cents on the dollar.

Clearly, some sparsely populated Western states need to get back more than a dollar per dollar paid, because they have so many miles of highway per resident. But there ought to be limits to an imbalance that also favors the heavily populated Northeast.

Warner's bill would bring at least $150 million more a year in federal highway funds to Virginia.

Earlier this week, Warner dispatched a memorandum asking Lott to end the ``outrageous formula inequity'' that penalizes many states. Lott's state is among those penalized.

Congress had begun to rise in the opinion polls, as Republicans and Democrats worked together to achieve a balanced budget. Congress deserves to plummet in the public's estimation if it cannot pass a transportation bill that equitably distributes funds.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu