[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 67 (Friday, May 22, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5360-S5362]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ISTEA

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, later today, the Senate will vote on the 
conference report on H.R. 2400, the ISTEA reauthorization legislation. 
I regret that I am unable to be here to vote on this important piece of 
legislation, but I must depart momentarily to speak to the 25th 
Anniversary Reunion of Vietnam-Era Prisoners of War in Dallas, Texas.
  If I were able to record my vote, however, I would vote against this 
conference agreement. This legislation is likely the most pork-laden 
legislation ever to be considered by Congress in the 20th Century. This 
conference report should be defeated, despite the inclusion of many 
important and commendable provisions.
  I cannot support this conference report despite the fact that it does 
include significant motor carrier, highway and boating safety 
initiatives developed by the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
Transportation. The Commerce Committee conferees, Senator Hollings, 
Senator Stevens, and I, worked diligently and responsibly to ensure 
that effective truck safety inspection and enforcement activities are 
continued, that safety initiatives on motor vehicle occupant protection 
are created, and that recreational boating activities are advanced.
  The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation portion of the 
conference report also requires the National Highway Traffic and Safety 
Administration (NHTSA) to change existing passenger car air bag 
standards so that the risks air bags pose to infants, children, and 
other individuals are minimized. I also want to take this opportunity 
to express my personal thanks to Senator Kempthorne. Without his 
involvement, I doubt our efforts to improve passenger car air bags 
would have succeeded as they did.
  Yet despite these notable achievements, I regret I cannot support the 
ISTEA reauthorization conference report. I object for several key 
reasons: the budgetary offsets, donor state inequity, and pork barrel 
spending.
  On April 2nd, I reluctantly voted for an amendment sponsored by 
Senators Domenici, Lott, and Craig on the Balanced Budget Act which 
proposed to transfer approximately $10.5 billion over five years from 
the Department of Veterans Affairs for veterans' tobacco-related 
diseases to pay for the transportation reauthorization legislation. In 
part, I did this because I believe that the tobacco companies, rather 
than the taxpayers, should bear the burden for veterans' tobacco-
related diseases caused partially by smoking and using other tobacco 
products while they were in military service.
  Military service did not force servicemembers to smoke, but I do 
acknowledge that for morale reasons, the services made cigarettes 
available for free or at inexpensive prices. The services also give 
servicemembers condoms and birth control pills at no cost to military 
personnel, but that does not mean that they want our men and women in 
uniform to be promiscuous.

[[Page S5361]]

  As a conferee on this multi-year highway funding reauthorization 
bill, I have refused to support or sign the ISTEA conference report. As 
I mentioned earlier, of the three reasons for my opposition, the 
shifting of critical veterans funding to perpetuate donor state 
inequity and support the pork barrel spending in this massive highway 
bill is egregious.
  Additionally, I will seek to ensure that any tobacco bill that passes 
the Senate includes money for the veterans health care system to help 
reimburse the costs of treating veterans with tobacco-related diseases. 
Our nation's veterans should not be excluded from payments by tobacco 
companies for health care costs associated with tobacco-related 
diseases. The failure to address the tobacco-related health care needs 
of our men and women who faithfully served their country in uniform 
would be wrong.
  Congress cannot continue to rob from veterans, whose programs have 
been seriously underfunded for years, to pay for a bill that ranks as 
the largest pork-barrel spending bill ever written.
  Two months ago during the debate on the McCain/Mack/Graham/ Thurmond/
Coats/Brownback/Kyl amendment, I discussed the history of highway bill 
demonstration projects. Those remarks are as relevant today as they 
were two months ago, because if we adopt this conference report as 
presently written, we will shatter all pork-barrel spending records.
  In 1982, the highway bill had 10 demonstration projects, costing a 
total of $362 million. In 1987, 152 demonstration projects were 
created, costing a total of $1.4 billion. In 1991, what was then felt 
to be the mother lode of all demo project bills, the Intermodal Surface 
Transportation and Efficiency Act (ISTEA), 538 location-specific 
projects totaling $6.23 billion were created.
  Where are we today? H.R. 2400 doesn't just double the number of 
location-specific project, but it more than triples the number of 
earmarked projects. The bill individually targets more than 1,850 
projects. The costs have risen as well. H.R. 2400 sets aside more than 
$9 billion to pay for these 1,850 specified highway projects. That is 
$9 billion of highway funding that Congress is mandating the states 
allocate to carry out whimsical projects. That is $9 billion that 
states cannot allocate to those infrastructure projects they deem most 
appropriate. Scores of other projects are listed in other sections of 
the legislation.
  A new name has even been created. We used to hear about 
``demonstration'' projects and ``innovative'' projects. Under H.R. 
2400, we now have ``high priority projects.'' Just what is a ``high 
priority'' project? Let me mention just a few examples of the type of 
project that the conferees believe are definitive projects.
  Funds are included to initiate ``traffic calming projects'' in West 
Palm Beach, Florida and Fauquier County, Virginia. Money is included to 
build a coal heritage trail in West Virginia. Millions of dollars are 
set aside in selected towns throughout the country to construct 
location-specific bike paths. If traffic calming activities and 
constructing boardwalks fail in some minds to qualify as a ``high 
priority'' project, there's always the funding set aside to produce a 
documentary film on infrastructure.
  I fail to see how items like these can seriously be considered 
``high'' transportation priorities.
  Priorities are traditionally established after thorough review and 
discussion. While our colleagues in the other body maintain that their 
projects were selected after a review process, I do know that the 
process in the Senate was not.
  At 5:30 last night, Senate transportation aides received an e-mail 
message announcing that a limited number of Senate high priority 
projects were about to be added to the conference report. 
Transportation aides were advised to inform the Environment and Public 
Works Committee if their members wanted any projects earmarked. Staff 
was advised that no more than half of the proposed State allocation 
amount should be earmarked. Explicit direction was provided on how a 
Member might make such a request, including that it must be in writing 
and the description of the project must not exceed 216 characters. In 
addition, a name and phone number was provided where staff could call 
to find out just how much extra money had been set aside for their 
state.
  Mr. President, this borders on the absurd. What ever happened to 
funding projects based on legitimate needs?
  Mr. President, this reauthorization would be comical if it weren't 
such an abrogation of our responsibilities to the American taxpayer.
  I am not alone in my disdain for this raid on the highway trust fund. 
Public interest groups have strongly criticized projects like these. 
The Heritage Foundation recently called on Congress to eliminate the 
House earmarks and to ``instead allow each state to use its share of 
the highway trust fund for projects that meet locally and state 
determined needs and priorities.'' Citizens Against Government Waste 
states that the House-passed legislation ``guarantees that federal 
highway dollars will continue to be doled out to regions with political 
muscle, rather than to areas that truly need it.''
  Two of the originally-stated goals in ISTEA's reauthorization were to 
promote state highway funding flexibility and to utilize limited 
resources responsibly. Rather than perpetuate Congressional earmarks, 
we should place our confidence in our elected Governors' and Mayors' 
decision-making capabilities. Local- and state-elected officials should 
make the final decisions on local and state roads.
  Lastly, I remain concerned over donor state equity. Currently, 
taxpayers living in donor states are forced to subsidize transportation 
projects in donee states. Arizona, for example, receives only about 85 
cents for every gas-tax dollar it contributes to the highway trust 
fund. The 85-cent return ratio is reality despite the fact that the 
original ISTEA legislation ``guaranteed,'' and I stress the word 
guaranteed, donor states a 90-cent return by 1997. The 1991 
``guarantee'' simply was never fulfilled.
  Now donor states are being told the new funding formula will 
guarantee they'll receive 90.5 cents back for every gas tax dollar sent 
to Washington. That's a mere half-penny increase over the 1991 
guarantee that was never realized.
  Today, many of our colleagues will announce that the conference 
report provides critical funding to meet the transportation needs ``for 
the 21st Century.'' The conferees have gone so far as to entitle the 
bill ``the Transportation Equity Act'' yet nothing could be further 
from the truth. We will be told the dramatic increase in highway 
spending--a portion of which I remind my colleagues comes at the 
expense of veterans programs and other domestic activities--will fill a 
critical gap in transportation spending. Yet I ask my colleagues, how 
can anyone realistically believe that a half-penny hike will meet the 
transportation needs for the fastest growing states in the nation. 
States like Arizona and Nevada are not being treated fairly or 
reasonably.
  Mr. President, the only guarantee that donor states should expect 
from this legislation is that they will continue to subsidize road 
projects in other states for the next six years.
  Mr. President, I also want to mention a purely procedural matter 
which deeply concerns me. When staff of the Senate conferees first met 
on the legislation, the Committee on Commerce, Science and 
Transportation was told specifically that several projects designated 
in the House-passed bill were squarely within our jurisdiction. The 
Environment and Public Works Committee in essence gave those projects 
over to the Commerce Committee. The Commerce Committee never resolved 
those issues, so I was quite surprised to see that the projects that 
EPW specifically gave over to Commerce Committee to handle quietly 
found their way into the conference report we debate today.
  I also formally protest the Transportation and Infrastructure 
Committee and Environment and Public Works Committee conferees' 
inclusion of a provision which is squarely within the Commerce 
Committee's jurisdiction. Those conferees included language to exempt 
winter home heating oil delivery drivers from hours of service 
regulations for the next two years.
  Let me be very clear. The Environment and Public Works Committee has 
no jurisdiction over federal motor carrier safety regulations governing 
hours

[[Page S5362]]

of service. Federal hours of service regulations are the primary 
protection for the traveling public against truck drivers being forced 
to drive excessive hours in a fatigued condition. The Senate Commerce 
Committee has sole jurisdiction over hours of service and the Senate 
Environment and Public Works Committee not only didn't ask for our 
input in the issue, but surreptitiously snuck it into the bill.
  As a conferee on the legislation I find this action reprehensible. As 
the Chairman of the Commerce Committee I find action inexcusable. And I 
assure my colleagues that this Senator will not let this action stand 
and I pledge that I will do all that I can to have this provision 
stripped from the legislation.
  Mr. President, this conference report is a sham. The so-called 
Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century is a fraud. We should 
not fool taxpayers into believing that this legislation is anything 
more than a raid on gasoline tax dollars at the expense of veterans 
benefits. I urge my colleagues to vote against the conference report.

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