[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 47 (Friday, April 24, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3574-S3575]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ISTEA

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, on Wednesday evening, the committee of 
conference on the reauthorization of the Intermodal Surface 
Transportation Efficiency Act, or ISTEA, had its first opportunity to 
sit down in full conference and discuss the differences between H.R. 
2400 and S. 1173, respectively, the House- and Senate-passed highway 
bills. As a Senator who is not a member of the conference committee but 
as a Senator who is, nevertheless, deeply committed to increasing 
substantially the size of our national investment in transportation 
infrastructure, I rise to urge the conferees to complete expeditiously 
their deliberations on the highway reauthorization bill. The conferees 
and all Senators are fully cognizant of the imminent--the imminent--
arrival of May 1, the date beyond which all States will be prohibited 
by law from obligating any Federal-aid highway funds.
  Senators will recall that, during the months of February and March, I 
and a number of other supporters of the Byrd/Gramm/Baucus/Warner 
amendment, spoke on the Senate floor on a daily basis to discuss the 
critical need for the Senate to turn immediately to the ISTEA, or the 
highway, reauthorization bill. I thought it was extremely important 
that all 100 Senators, all 50 Governors, and the thousands of State 
legislators and mayors and transportation agencies throughout our 
Nation were fully aware that the Surface Transportation Extension Act--
the short-term ISTEA extension bill passed at the end of last year--
includes a deadline on the authorization of our federal aid highway and 
transit programs. That short-term bill, P.L. 105-130, the Surface 
Transportation Extension Act of 1997, includes the following passage, 
and I quote from the law of the land.
  The Magna Carta of 1215, which the English barons forced King John to 
sign at Runnymede on the meadow near the Thames River, had a phrase

[[Page S3575]]

within it, ``the law of the land.'' That was the phrase, ``the law of 
the land.'' And our own American Constitution later used the phrase 
``due process.'' ``Due process.'' We speak of the due process law. Due 
process is an evolution from the law of the land in the Magna Carta.
  So I want to read this following passage from the law of the land:

       A State shall not obligate any funds for any federal aid 
     highway program project after May 1, 1998.

  There is no equivocation. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. Let me 
read it again. This passage is from the law of the land, the statute 
that Congress passed last November:

       A State shall not obligate any funds----

  That is pretty absolute, pretty final. There are no doubts that arise 
from reading that language.

       A State shall not obligate any funds for any Federal aid 
     highway program project after May 1, 1998.

  The short-term bill also includes other provisions which, in effect, 
limit our States to obligating no more than $9.8 billion through May 1 
on our Federal-aid highways. Even though the Transportation 
Appropriations Act for the current fiscal year provided a total 
obligation limitation of $21.5 billion, a historic 16 percent increase 
above the prior year's level, the short-term authorization bill 
effectively capped that amount at $9.8 billion, roughly 45 percent of 
the allowable appropriation. It will be necessary for a new highway 
bill to be enacted into law in order for the States to spend the 
remaining $11.7 billion allowed under the appropriations act.
  I recently contacted the Federal Highway Administration to find out 
how States are progressing in the obligation of this $9.8 billion and 
how their obligations compare to amounts they have obligated in prior 
years by this time. As of Wednesday evening, the States had obligated 
roughly $8.5 billion, or 86 percent, of the total $9.8 billion 
permitted under the short-term extension law. The Federal Highway 
Administration expects, however, that almost all of the $9.8 billion 
will be obligated by the time the clock strikes--by the time that clock 
just above the Presiding Officer's Chair strikes midnight one week from 
today. Indeed, this rate of obligations is consistent with the amounts 
the States customarily obligate by this point in the year.
  We now find ourselves in a situation where the Federal spigot will be 
shut off without even a dribble of funding going to States to continue 
the annual construction process beyond the end of next week. States 
will not be allowed to enter into any new obligations. It will be 
anything but business as usual in our Nation's highway construction 
enterprise. Roughly $11.7 billion in potential highway construction 
funds will be frozen at the Treasury until a new highway bill is signed 
into law. And if that highway bill is not signed into law soon, the 
States will be required to lay off highway workers and bring their 
planning and engineering activities to a halt. The longer it takes to 
get a new highway bill enacted, the greater the likelihood that a good 
part of the spring and summer construction season will be lost.
  I remind my colleagues that the Federal Highway Administration 
estimates that every billion dollars in federal highway spending 
generates 42,000 jobs throughout our economy. This $11.7 billion in 
construction funds that will be withheld from our States after May 1, 
pending the enactment of a new highway bill, thus, represents almost 
500,000 jobs. Put another way, Mr. President, our failure to enact a 
highway bill in the near term could result in layoffs approaching half 
a million workers over the long term.
  I do not believe that any Senator or any Member of the other body 
wants to see half a million highway workers thrown off the job. The 
sooner the Congress sends a highway bill to the President and the 
sooner the President signs that bill, the sooner we will ensure that 
this does not happen.
  Mr. President, I am hopeful that the conferees on the highway bill 
will complete their work promptly. Through the intervention of the 
bipartisan leadership of both the House and the Senate, each body has 
now passed a comprehensive surface transportation bill with 
substantially increased resources. This accomplishment was long overdue 
and I commend the leadership of the House and the Senate, as well as 
the leadership of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, 
and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, in passing 
bills that will finally authorize the obligation of all new revenues to 
the highway trust fund.
  I do not mean to belittle the task that is before the conferees in 
the development of the final conference agreement on the ISTEA 
reauthorization bill. There are significant differences in approach and 
policy between the two bills. I am confident, however, that under the 
leadership of Chairman Shuster and Chairman Chafee and their Democratic 
counterparts, Congressman Oberstar and Senator Baucus, these 
differences can be resolved so that we can adopt a conference report as 
close to the May 1 deadline as possible. So I implore all conferees to 
work diligently, as they always do, to ensure that our States, and our 
local communities, see no interruption in the flow of critically needed 
highway investment dollars.
  (Mr. Hagel assumed the Chair.)

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