Senate gives highway projects temporary reprieve

Senate gives highway projects temporary reprieve    The U.S. Senate passed a two-month funding extension for highway safety and construction programs two days before authorization to spend money on such activities expired.
   Last fall Congress extended highway spending authority at 2003 funding levels in lieu of agreement on a multiyear spending blueprint to replace the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century. The House had already agreed to another extension.
   Congress is still trying to hammer out a six-year surface transportation plan. The Bush administration wants to budget $256 billion, the Senate voted for a $318 billion plan and the House is working on a $375 billion proposal of its own. Differences also remain about how to fund the bill.
   In the meantime construction projects, motor carrier safety inspection and other programs are limping along until they get the go ahead for a funding commitment. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta had warned that without a temporary extension of the reauthorization bill he would have had to furlough 5,000 employees at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and other agencies, and cut off money to states for projects already in the pipeline.
   “I urge Congress to use the time provided by this second extension to give America a bill that allows states to plan and construct critical highway and transit projects, without raising gas taxes, increasing the deficit or taking money from other important federal programs,” Mineta said in a statement.