[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 73 (Tuesday, June 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5762-S5764]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE TRANSPORTATION EQUITY ACT FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I rise today to say a few words about the 
Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, otherwise known as the 
ISTEA reauthorization legislation. This was passed by the House and 
Senate on May 22, and the President will sign this historic legislation 
into law later this afternoon.
  In the rush to finish the conference before the Memorial Day recess--
and I know the Chair remembers well the frantic hours that were taking 
place then--and during our subsequent efforts on the technical 
corrections bill to this overall legislation, I did not have an 
opportunity to speak about what was accomplished in this important 
bill. I also want to take this chance to thank the many people who were 
involved in the effort.
  First, a word about the legislation. It is the result of over 2 years 
of hard work and careful negotiation. But I think the final product is 
better for the extra time and effort that was put into it.
  This legislation builds upon the landmark achievements of the so-
called first ISTEA legislation, which stands for Intermodal Surface 
Transportation Efficiency Act. That was in 1991. Senator Moynihan of 
New York was chairman of our committee at the time, the Environment and 
Public Works Committee, and was, I think it is fair to say, the 
principal author of that landmark legislation in 1991.

  Now, how is this bill historic? And how is it different from the 1991 
legislation?
  First, and most obvious, ISTEA II, or sometimes called the 
Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, authorizes a record 
amount of funding for surface transportation: almost $218 billion for 
highway and transit programs over the next 6 years.
  Of this amount, almost $174 billion will be for highways--that 
includes bridges, obviously--$3 billion is for highway safety programs, 
and $41 billion is for transit programs.
  Now, $205 billion of these funds are authorized from the highway 
trust fund, and $13 billion from the general fund. In total, the funds 
provided in the conference report represent a 40 percent increase over 
the last so-called ISTEA legislation--40 percent increase.
  We will provide these record funding levels in the funding guarantee 
within a balanced budget. I think that is terribly important to 
remember, Mr. President. We are not increasing the Federal deficit, 
despite some of the statements that have been made in the various news 
media.
  For achieving these record funding levels for the highway program, 
Senators Byrd, Gramm, Warner and Baucus deserve special recognition, as 
well

[[Page S5763]]

as Congressmen Shuster and Oberstar from the House. All of those 
Members fought long and hard to ensure transportation would receive 
substantial increases over the original ISTEA legislation.
  I know that the sums in this bill are large, and the press reports 
sometimes imply we spent too much, but I think we have to put all this 
into context.
  The bill authorizes, indeed, $218 billion. And I must say, that is a 
lot of money, as we all recognize. It is over 6 years. As I said, this 
represents a large increase over ISTEA I of 1991.
  However, and I think this is an important point, only about 30 to 40 
percent of the total projected spending for highways and transit by all 
levels of government is encompassed in this legislation. People come up 
to me and say, well, isn't that a lot of money to be spending on 
transportation--that is, highways, bridges and transit--over the 6 
years? Yes, it is a lot of money, but you have to realize it only 
represents about 30 to 40 percent of the total projected spending that 
will be done.
  Where does the other spending come from? It comes from counties, it 
comes from States, it comes from cities that are doing things on their 
own.
  In addition to record authorization levels, this legislation made 
significant changes to the way we budget for transportation at the 
Federal level. This legislation changed the budgetary treatment of the 
highway trust fund following the model set forth in a bill first 
introduced by Senator Bond, which I was pleased to cosponsor and work 
on with him, the so-called Bond-Chafee legislation.
  This bill ensures that all Federal gas tax revenues deposited into 
the highway trust fund are spent on transportation programs. In effect, 
this bill reestablishes the linkage between the highway trust fund 
taxes and transportation spending that was envisioned when the highway 
trust fund was created. If future revenues to the highway trust fund 
increase, then under this legislation the highway spending will 
increase; and, of course, it works the other way, likewise. If the 
amount going into the highway trust fund from the various taxes--
principally the Federal tax on gasoline--decreases, then highway 
spending, likewise, will decrease.
  Now, using Congressional Budget Office projections, $198 billion of 
the total funding for highway and transit programs will be guaranteed 
under the new budget mechanism we have. Of the $198 billion, $162 
billion is for highway and highway safety programs and $36 billion is 
for transit programs. It is important to note that this historic change 
which reestablishes the linkage between the trust fund moneys and trust 
fund spending was all accomplished within the balanced budget 
framework. We will keep the highway trust fund on budget as part of a 
unified budget and we will offset the increased spending with spending 
reductions in other programs.
  I want to thank Senator Bond for his tireless work on the so-called 
Bond-Chafee proposal, which provides the underlying foundation for the 
budget reforms we implemented in this legislation. I thank the 
cosponsors of the Bond-Chafee proposal for their input. I also want to 
thank Senator Domenici and his staff for their work throughout the year 
and for their help in crafting the final budget mechanism that will 
become law later this afternoon.
  I believe the original ISTEA was a landmark piece of legislation. I 
have said that many, many times. However, it is true that in the 1991 
legislation there were some shortcomings, particularly for the so-
called donor States. These were the States that put in substantially 
more into the trust fund than they got back. The original ISTEA 
established a 90 percent minimum allocation program which was intended 
to guarantee that each State at least got back 90 percent of what that 
State put into the trust fund. The problem was that it didn't work. The 
90 percent only applied to some of the programs and wasn't structured 
mathematically to achieve its goals. The old minimum allocation 
calculation applied to fewer than 80 percent of the programs, leaving 
some States to receive a percentage share that was equal to 70 to 80 
percent of their share of contributions. In other words, a program that 
was designed to make sure that every State got back at least 90 percent 
failed. Indeed, some States were left with between 70 plus up to 80 
cents back on the dollars as opposed to the 90 cents.

  In this legislation, thanks to the leadership of Senator Warner and 
others in the Senate, tremendous efforts were made to guarantee that 
each State would get back--at least originally, we sought 92 percent. 
We weren't able to achieve that under the formula, but we did come up 
so that every State got back 90.5 cents for every dollar that State put 
into the trust fund, at least. So the donor States were put in far 
better shape than they previously had been under the old former 
legislation.
  Other members of the Environment and Public Works Committee who 
played a key role in achieving this result were all very, very helpful. 
In addition, we had Senators who were not on the committee who were 
very anxious about the program. Senators Abraham, Lugar, Coats, Mack, 
Graham, and Levin were diligent in their efforts to see that their 
States got back at least the 90.5 cents.
  Another area where ISTEA broke with the past is how priority 
projects, otherwise known as demonstration projects, are treated. I 
realize that these projects are viewed by some just like the 
demonstration projects of the past. However, I think the way we dealt 
with them in this legislation was somewhat different. First, the 
special projects, demonstration projects in this bill, did receive an 
amount of attention that was far out of proportion to their dollar 
significance. The high priority projects similar to those in ISTEA I 
only received 5 percent of the total. If you read the newspapers, you 
would think they were consuming 40 to 50 percent of the total. Not at 
all. These special projects received 5 percent of the total. In the 
original bill, priority projects were treated as mandatory spending, 
exempt from the appropriations process. In this legislation, priority 
projects are discretionary spending, subject to the obligation 
limitations in the appropriation process.
  Third, under the former bill, ISTEA I, priority projects were always 
funded at 100 percent of their authorized level. In other words, 
priority projects were not reduced when the total authorization went 
down. However, in this legislation, these projects were treated as the 
same as the other core projects, taking their share of any reduction 
caused by a shortfall in final appropriations. If the total amount goes 
down, the special projects go down, likewise.
  We made a sincere commitment to safety in this legislation, 
recognizing that more than 40,000 Americans die and 3 million are 
injured in highway crashes every single year in our country. This is a 
tragic effect for millions of American families. We recognized these 
statistics and included a variety of initiatives to address this 
terrible problem. We increased the Federal commitment to improve 
roadway safety, providing more than $6.6 billion for highway safety 
programs; $3.6 billion of that will be available for safety 
construction, efforts aimed at eliminating road hazards and improving 
safety at rail-highway grade crossings. We provided a little over half 
a billion in incentives to States to promote seatbelt use. Seatbelt 
usage is by far the most important step that vehicle occupants can take 
to protect themselves in the event of a crash. We provided half a 
billion in incentive programs to encourage States to adopt tough .08 
blood alcohol concentration standards. This is something that Senators 
Lautenberg and DeWine worked very, very hard on. I want to recognize 
their efforts.
  Under the category of innovation, we recognized we must maintain the 
strength of the transportation system we have in place but we have to 
provide new tools to address new problems and supply new solutions. We 
have to look at ways to finance our substantial infrastructure needs, 
evaluating the potential of new methods to design and build 
infrastructure more efficiently so we have innovative financing 
provisions, the so-called Transportation Infrastructure Financing and 
Innovation Act. That is a mouthful. It is also known TIFIA. I want to 
thank Senators Graham and Moynihan for their leadership on that 
important provision.
  As far as intelligent transportation systems go, this is a forward-
looking

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initiative. We have to make the most efficient use of our existing 
highways. We provide new options for transportation planners to address 
safety and capacity concerns. The objective is to move more vehicles in 
a safer fashion over the same amount of highway that exists--not expand 
the highways, just move more vehicles along the existing highways in a 
safe fashion.
  The environment received great attention in our legislation, and, I 
might say, so did ISTEA I in 1991. But we continued that. Indeed, we 
increased funding for the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality 
Program. In other words, where congestion arises, we took efforts to 
mitigate those problems and the reflections that that congestion has 
upon our air quality.
  We boosted funding for the Transportation Enhancements Program. We 
increased that by 38 percent over the prior legislation of 1991. So 
States can use these funds for what we call transportation 
enhancements, such as bicycle and pedestrian facilities and historic or 
environmental preservation projects.
  We initiated a wetlands banking system to mitigate transportation's 
effect on wetlands. When we build new roads, all too often wetlands are 
affected. We want to promote wetlands restoration. We did that by 
making wetlands restoration a profitable private enterprise.
  We reauthorized and amended the Aquatic Resources Trust Fund, which 
provides about $350 million annually to States throughout the Nation 
for sport fish restoration and boat safety programs.
  So these are some of the things that we did. We had environmental 
streamlining. We held the line on administrative expenses. We added a 
design-build system for contracting. Current law doesn't allow the use 
of the so-called design-build concept in highway construction. The 
design-build concept combines the design and construction phases of a 
highway project, allowing projects to be built faster and at less cost 
to the taxpayer.
  Mr. President, I will conclude by recognizing the tremendous efforts 
put forth in this legislation by the staffs and by the Department of 
Transportation. I want to thank Secretary Slater and Federal Highway 
Administrator Wykle for their time and effort on this bill and for 
making the full resources of the Department available to us. From the 
Department of Transportation, I thank specifically Jack Basso, Nadine 
Hamilton, Bud Wright and his staff, Tom Weeks, Bruce Swinford, Roger 
Mingo, Dedra Goodman, Frank Calhoun and his staff, Patricia Doersch, 
Bryan Grote, and David Seltzer. These individuals, particularly on the 
formula runs, were tremendously helpful.
  I thank Secretary Slater for allowing Cheryle Tucker from the Federal 
Highway Administration to be detailed to our committee for 16 months to 
help us on this. I thank all the conferees from the Environment and 
Public Works Committee; all 18 were conferees. I think that was very 
helpful to me, and I believe it worked well. These members took hours 
from their busy schedules to listen to summaries of what was taking 
place and offered suggestions. I thank the chairman of the 
subcommittee, Senator Warner, and the ranking member, Senator Baucus, 
for their efforts in getting this legislation up to the full committee.
  Lastly, I would like to recognize the efforts of the Senate staff who 
worked so long and hard. Of course, I thank every single one of them. 
Particularly, I recognize the work of Jimmie Powell, who was just 
tireless, and a series of others who did such a good job. I am going to 
run over the names of some of those who worked on the reauthorization 
that I was particularly close with. Chris Hessler; Dan Corbett, of 
course, who was tireless and always present; Ann Loomis; Tom Sliter; 
Kathy Ruffalo, with Senator Baucus; Chris Russell; Gary Smith; Tracy 
Henke, with Senator Bond; Jason Rupp; Doug Benevento, with Senator 
Allard; Abigail Kinnison with the Environment and Public Works 
Committee; Al Dahlberg with the Environment and Public Works Committee; 
Linda Willard with the Environment and Public Works Committee; Ellen 
Stein with Senator Warner; Chad Bradley with Senator Inhofe; Chris Jahn 
with Senator Thomas; Gerry Gilligan with Senator Sessions; Rick 
Dearborn with Senator Sessions; Arnold Kupferman with Senator Moynihan; 
Polly Trottenberg with Senator Moynihan; Liz O'Donoghue with Senator 
Lautenberg; Kirsten Beronio with Senator Lautenberg; Drew Willison with 
Senator Reid; Melissa White with Senator Graham; Tim Hess with Senator 
Graham; Joyce Rechtscheffen with Senator Lieberman; Christopher Prins 
with Senator Lieberman; Rob Alexander with Senator Boxer; Joshua 
Shenkmen with Senator Wyden; Howard Menell with the Banking, Housing, 
and Urban Affairs; Peggy Kuhn with the Banking, Housing, and Urban 
Affairs; Joe Mondello with the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; 
Loretta Garrison with the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs; Bill 
Hoagland with the Budget Committee; Brian Riley with the Budget 
Committee; Austin Smythe with the Budget Committee; Mitch Warren with 
the Budget Committee; Ann Begeman with the Commerce, Science and 
Transportation Committee; Charlotte Casey with the Commerce, Science 
and Transportation Committee; Clyde Hart with the Commerce, Science and 
Transportation Committee; Bob Greenawalt with Senator Chafee; Ashley 
Miller with Senator Roth; Keith Hennessey with Senator Lott; Carl 
Biersak with Senator Lott; Janine Johnson with Senate Legislative 
Counsel; Peter Rogoff with Senator Byrd; Pam Sellers with Senator 
Coats; Steve McMilin with Senator Gramm; and Dave Russell with Senator 
Stevens.

  They all were tremendous, and I feel bad if I left out the names of 
any of them. So it goes, Mr. President, without the help of these 
individuals, we plain could not have gotten this legislation 
accomplished. So I thank every one of them.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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