Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

At this point, I will yield to the Senator from Iowa, and following his remarks I will seek to be recognized.

(Mr. ENSIGN assumed the Chair.)

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, at this time I would like to recognize Senator Shelby for some comments about his amendment and then reclaim the floor.

No.

Mr. President, first of all, I am sure we all appreciate that clarification. I often wish the Senators who are not on the committee knew the time, effort, the bridges we have crossed, the compromises we have made, and the time we have spent. We have some provisions that have nothing to do with the formula or the issues or the nongermane issues that the Senator from New Hampshire has. It has been very difficult. It has taken many hours and committee hearings. We have had people coming in from local governments and State governments to get where we are today.

We would like to have gotten to this point back when the other authorization ran out but were unable to do it. We made a commitment that we would be there, and we are capable of being there now when this expires on February 29. So there is going to be every effort to get that done.

I know the Senator from Rhode Island wants to be heard. It will be my intention to reclaim the floor at the conclusion of his remarks.

Before the Senator yields the floor, will he yield for a question?

First, I appreciate the fact the ranking member of the committee is bringing up these issues. Everything he mentioned was controversial. Fortunately, we didn't have to handle a lot of the problems with transit because that was done in another committee, and I certainly commend the chairman of the committee, as well as the ranking member, as well as the subcommittee ranking member and subcommittee chairman. I understand the subcommittee chairman is going to come on the floor and make some comments.

When the Senator talks about safe routes to school, I think that is a good example of the weeks and months we spent coming to an agreement. Frankly, Senator Jeffords is the one driving force to get up from $50 million to $75 million. I felt that perhaps priorities could be in some other areas.

In looking at this, I want to commend the Senator for the work he did because I think he is right. We probably spent several months just on the freight area. Everyone knows that was not adequately addressed in TEA-21 and was not adequately addressed in ISTEA. I appreciate very much the time the Senator has spent in these very sensitive and controversial areas where it was give and take, it was compromise. Many times we gave up something we believed in in order to accomplish it and come up with a bill, a good bill, which we have right now.

I thank the Senator.

I ask if the chairman of the committee has any further comments to make concerning this particular part of the bill, the transit portion.

I appreciate the comments the Senator made. I know it is a very difficult area to deal in, but I think it is also interesting. When we look at the chairman, the ranking member, and then the chairman of the subcommittee and the ranking member of the subcommittee, there is Alabama, Maryland, Colorado, Rhode Island. There is a huge diversity. Most people think that geographically only certain parts of the country have an interest in transit. It is not true at all because there is equal enthusiasm. I am quite sure, knowing all four personalities and the areas they represent, they spent a long time putting this together, coming up with the successes they did achieve.

I would like to go back and review a couple of subjects we have talked about, but, first, I understand that perhaps Senator Carper was wanting to seek recognition.

The Senator may have longer than that if he wishes, and then I would want to reclaim the floor at the conclusion.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

I yielded to the Senator from Delaware at his request, and I asked that I get the floor when he finished. I want to explain to the Senator why I wanted to get the floor back. We are on the transit section. The chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Allard, has been waiting to be heard on that. I only inquire about how long the Senator will be until we regain the floor.

How much time does the Senator think he will require?

I thank the Senator.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I appreciate very much the Senator from Massachusetts being sensitive to the chairman of the Subcommittee on Transit who wants to come down to the floor. He will be here shortly.

Mr. President, what I thought I would do is continue to go through-- in these moments where there is a little bit of a lull--this section- by-section analysis, as arduous as it may be to some people. But I think we need to have it in the Record so everybody has an understanding of not the hours, not the days, but the more than an entire year we have worked very carefully with the Senator from Nevada and the Senator from Vermont in coming up with the agreements and the compromises we have.

As we had said before, the goals of the reauthorization of TEA-21-- which for the next 6 years we refer to as SAFETEA--have been to increase the rate of return to donor States. This is something of which certainly the Presiding Officer is fully aware. It is something we are all sensitive to.

My State of Oklahoma, for example, was down in the 70 percent range prior to ISTEA. Then with ISTEA and TEA-21 we crept up to 90.5 percent. This bill will take us up so every State will be guaranteed to get back 95 percent. I think that goes a long way. Some people who are a bit sensitive to the plight of donor States believe that getting to 95 percent pretty much resolves the problem.

That was one of the points we dealt with, and that took a long time on which to get an agreement. At the same time we did that, we wanted to make sure we were not negatively impacting donee States. We hear people come down and complain about the formula approach, their State perhaps is not getting what they should be getting. Then we hear later on a donee State will come down. We have to recognize, if we don't have floors and ceilings and we take care of all the needs of the donor States, it is going to affect the others.

For the fast growing States, that is a consideration in the formula. We have never done this before. For those States that are growing very fast, we had to put in a ceiling, so we bumped the ceiling; otherwise, there wouldn't be anything for the other States.

We have to keep in mind that the three largest, fast growing States are consuming in this bill 26 percent of the growth. Consequently, as people have come to the floor, if you try to look at that and say, yes, we are sensitive to this, we must do something about the fast growing State, and yet at the same time you have one of the States such as New York or Pennsylvania that would be negatively impacted by the same thing. So this was a compromise all the way through.

Streamlining is something we tried to address. I was actively involved in the other body during the development of ISTEA in 1991 and then again in TEA-21 in 1998 on this side. We were not successful in doing it. In other words, there are things we can do to streamline some of the regulations we have to deal with. Many of those are environmental regulations where we can get that taken care of first, and we have provisions in this legislation that will do that and end up getting a lot more for our dollars.

The reason we are calling this SAFETEA is that right now we have some 43,000 deaths on the highway. We are looking now at a trend line that is going the wrong way. So it is time to address that. We even have the name SAFETEA. That is very appropriate.

Freight movement: We haven't really spent a long time on addressing these things. Nonetheless, this bill does do it. The Federal Highway System is a key component to continued economic growth in this country. We have talked about the positive effect of this bill when we get it passed and get by these parliamentary obstacles. Keep in mind, it bothers me a little bit that we have obstacles from perhaps 5 or 6 people when we had 75 votes to move on and invoke cloture.

Remember when we saw in one of the publications on the Hill the ``Men Working'' sign, and then, superimposed in the middle of that, ``Men Not Working.'' That is a sign that we still have a problem. We have an economy that is on the rebound now, but jobs are lingering behind.

There is no program out there that is more of a significant jobs program than this bill. The IPAM provisions in the legislation will allow those projects which are immediately ready to be completed. I know the Senator from Oregon has been very concerned about how quickly we can get in there and get some of these jobs going. That is why that provision is in there, so you can move immediately to those projects that have been approved without going through a long and arduous process.

That is the major concern the American people have with our not getting something done. There is a lag behind highway construction and getting the job done, we all know that.

When you talk about deficient bridges, of all 50 States, my State is No. 1. People are very sensitive to that. But they also recognize that even when we pass this, it is going to take a while to get this done.

What they are aware of is, you pass this and immediately it is going to have a very positive impact on the job market. In calculating job opportunities, it is about quadruple the number of jobs that would be corrected with this legislation. The reason is this: If a guy has a job, he is out building a road; he is also buying goods and services. The manufacturing jobs are improving. We are talking about a huge issue. There is nothing we can do that would more quickly take care of this problem.

The old bills had what was called a minimum guarantee. TEA-21 had a minimum guarantee. We all remember. We remember that formula, the 1104 formula. As you looked at the formula, each State had a percentage of the total amount, and that was what was called the formula. But politically speaking, once you get up to the 60 votes you need, it does not make any difference what they did. Consequently, it didn't have any of the provisions in there that would try to do the most good, build the best roads, and take care of the problems in the States where they are the most serious. We have done away with that.

It would have been easier to just go ahead with that because everybody understands that and you get 60 people happy and you have a bill. But we didn't want to do that because there are a lot of the categories of people in the States that need to be taken care of.

One of the problems we have with the very fast growing States and the large States is that while we are going to end up in 2009, at the end of this 6-year period, with 95 percent in terms of the donor States, the fast growing States, the large States will not reach that until 2009. I regret that is necessary, but frankly there is no other way to make this happen. So what we did was to put the formula into effect and let the formula work.

I have been going through and outlining the various sections of the bill. We have done it from the very beginning, section 1101, all the way up now to 1620.

Section 1620 is the Highway Stormwater Discharge Mitigation Program. As introduced, S. 1072 did address the issue of contaminated storm water runoff from highways. Specifically, it expanded the eligibility of storm water projects to be able to use a State's funds under the NHS program and extended the eligibility of storm water projects to mitigate runoff on existing Federal aid highways, ongoing reconstruction, rehabilitation, resurfacing, or restoration projects. An amendment was adopted to create a 2 percent set-aside from the Surface Transportation Program amounting to nearly $1 billion.

This is something about which I know a lot of Members have a concern. My position has always been that if a State wants to use a 2 percent, a State can do it. If you have a mandatory set-aside, it puts us all in the position of where not only do we not have a choice, no other State has either. When you add it up, that is a lot of money. You are talking about a billion dollars. That is something that is going to be dealt with, it is my understanding, by interested Members. We will have to debate that.

My concern is getting to the position where we can debate legitimate differences of opinion. And that was one on which our committee was divided right down the middle. The concern I have right now is we are not debating things where there is a legitimate difference of opinion or even things that are germane. I hope that we can get to a point where we can table all nongermane amendments. I don't think we are going to get there, but I would like to get there. If we did, that would resolve that problem.

There are legitimate issues to deal with, with amendments. Section 1701 is transportation systems management and operations. Despite the historic increase in highway investment following the enactment of TEA- 21, operational performance has declined. For example, a trip that would have taken 25 minutes during the congested period in 1987 now takes an additional 5 minutes. What we are talking about here is we have more congestion. I have seen this congestion mount. I was in the other body for 8 years. I was on the Transportation Committee during that time. The committee structure in the other body is not the same as here. In the other body, all they deal with is transportation.

Over here, we have Environment and Public Works, so we have other issues with which to deal. But when I got to the Senate, a vice chairmanship of the subcommittee became available. That was clean air. We went through the clean air problems we had during the Browner administration in the EPA. A lot of the problems that came up in my State--in fact, with original proposals that came through, out of 77 counties in Oklahoma we would have had some 50 counties that would have been out of attainment. We worked on that and tried to get something done that would be successful.

But when we deal with this section 1701, we are saying that if you are out there taking a trip, going from one point to another, and because of congestion you have to stop and let your engine idle and let the truck idle, you are using up a lot of fuel unnecessarily, and we will quantify that in a moment in our discussion. No. 2, it is a time waste. So you have an air quality problem as well as a pollution problem. This bill makes several changes to improve the transportation system's management and operations, including the creation of a foundation for transportation systems management and operations. Through the provisions of this bill, transportation systems management and operations programs and projects are integrated into the capital planning and construction processes. States are given tools for reducing traffic delays caused by vehicle accidents and breakdowns on highways during peak traveling times. The bill encourages continued development and deployment of safety measures, notification systems to disseminate safety information on Federal aid highways to motorists and public safety agencies as needed. Examples may include traffic congestion, freight movement and conditions, amber alert, weather event emergency notifications, and border and homeland security notifications.

I have been informed there may be another Member who wants to speak for a specific period of time on an unrelated issue.

I will yield----

Yes.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Oregon be recognized for up to 12 minutes on a subject of his choice and that Senator Allard be recognized immediately after that.

Mr. President, first of all, I appreciate the efforts my colleague from Colorado has made on the committee all the way through, in addition to the transit portion of this bill. We have had a very cohesive committee in the time, well over a year, we have worked on this issue.

I would like to go through a few more sections here until someone appears, wanting to be recognized.

Arguably, this bill could be characterized as the most significant bill we will deal with in terms of how it affects so many people.

Regarding the Real-Time System Management Information Program, real- time information is the key to enhancing the operation and performance in the management of our transportation system. In drafting this legislation we adopted the ambitious and important goal of providing nationwide capability of real-time traffic and travel information. The more up-to-date information available to highway users, the better they are able to utilize the highway transportation system efficiently. The objectives of the Real-Time System Management Information Program include improving the security of the surface transportation system, addressing congestion problems, improving responses to weather events, and facilitating national and regional travel information.

As part of this real-time information program, States are required to establish a statewide incident reporting system within 2 years unless the Secretary grants a longer extension of time.

We try to recognize all the way through the bill what we don't want to do. Having been a mayor of a major city for four terms, I know what unfunded mandates are. That is something we don't want to be a part of, and we are not. We were sensitive to the problems of States and local governments so unique problems we cannot foresee at this time are taken care of with the discretion of the Secretary of Transportation.

Regarding future Interstate System routes, under current law, States have 12 years to construct National Highway System roads according to the standards of a highway on the Interstate System if they wish to designate the highway as a future Interstate System route. Recognizing the relative needs of the States and their respective abilities to meet these standards, this bill extends the current 12-year requirement to 25 years in order to give States more time to substantially complete the construction of highways designated as future Interstate System routes.

One of the problems, if we didn't do this, is that is making this a race to complete projects. The decision that programs should warrant more time, we feel, is going to end up being in everyone's benefit.

Stewardship and oversight is section 1802. Value engineering is another important stewardship tool for reducing the total cost of projects and improving their quality. Along these lines, States must annually certify the adequacy of their financial management systems and project delivery systems to meet all Federal requirements for financial integrity.

Accordingly, the Secretary is required to develop minimum standards for estimating project costs and to periodically evaluate the States' practices for estimating costs, awarding contracts, and reducing costs. States must apply a value engineering analysis during the design phase of all highway projects on the Federal aid system over $25 million and all bridge projects over $20 million to reduce the overall cost of the project and improve project quality.

Not only are States required to meet standards of financial integrity for federally funded projects, but they must also determine that subrecipients of those Federal dollars also have sufficient accounting controls and project delivery systems.

The bill also contains mechanisms to protect future Federal aid projects from fraud by mandating the debarment of contractors who have been convicted of fraud related to Federal aid highway or transit programs. It mandates the suspension of contractors who have been indicted for offenses relating to fraud.

This has become a problem because there is no mechanism set up to keep this from happening. We now will have the mechanism.

Section 1803 is design-build contracting. Under the current law, a design-build contract is defined as an agreement that provides for both the design and construction of a project. The goal of design-build contracting is to reduce costs by contracting out the design and construction of a project to a single contractor. At Senator Cornyn's request, the bill expands eligibility for design-build projects to include the design and construction of intermodal facilities.

Section 1804 is program efficiencies financing. To address certain program efficiencies in the area of financing, the bill revises current law by removing the existing restrictions that States must obligate all apportioned or allocated funds or demonstrate they will use all obligation authority allocated to it for a Federal aid highway or highway safety construction before advanced construction projects are approved. This revision clarifies that advance construction procedures can be used for all categories of Federal aid funds, and that when a project is converted at a regular Federal aid project, any available Federal aid funds may be used to convert the project.

The bill further removes the existing requirement that the Secretary first approve an application from the State before authorizing the payment of the Federal share of the cost of the project when additional funds are later apportioned or allocated to the State.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

If the Senator will yield, it is my understanding that there will be an objection.

Mr. President, I have some remarks in conjunction with the statement of Senator Voinovich. I will yield to the Senator from Florida as soon as I make a couple of comments.

Mr. President, I rise to speak in favor of the amendment offered by my colleague from Ohio, Senate Voinovich. First, I thank him for working so hard on this very important issue. I know this issue has been controversial, and I appreciate his dedication to working out a compromise. Senate Voinovich's amendment adds much-needed reforms to a provision in current law commonly referred to as section 4(f) review.

Section 4(f) was approved by Congress as part of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966 to protect public parks, recreation areas, wildlife and waterfowl refuges, and public and private historic sites.

It is important to protect our historic treasures and environmental and recreational resources. Our Government has invested money in establishing and maintaining these resources for the public's use. We should not allow another department to turn around and diminish those investments without good reason.

Unfortunately, court decisions have led to an interpretation of ``avoid at all costs.'' In addition to adding significant time delays caused by extensive study of alternatives, this interpretation has led to some really bad public policy decisions--decisions that defy common sense.

For instance, does it make sense to spend a hundred thousand dollars to shift an alignment in order to avoid an old, abandoned, dilapidated barn? I don't think so, but it has happened. Should private citizens lose parts of their front yards to road expansion so that we can save the supposed parkland between the current road and the ditch that runs alongside it? I don't think so, but it has happened.

Those are just a couple of examples of where section 4(f) is obviously broken and desperately needs to be fixed. I am pleased that Senator Voinovich has brought us such a fix.

The State of Oklahoma DOT is pleased with this language. Our folks who actually deal with this issue on a regular basis believe this will help them make better decisions with less delay.

I think this amendment represents good policy all the way around-- transportation officials will be able to make commonsense decisions, particularly when it comes to projects that will have minimal impacts, and we can all be assured that these important environmental and cultural resources are protected.

It is my understanding that this language was developed by a wide range of stakeholders, including Ohio DOT, AASHTO, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Defense and the Natural Resources Defense Council. I commend Senator Voinovich for bringing forward this section 4(f) amendment, and I am happy to add my support to it. I regret that we cannot consider his amendment today, but I assure the Senator that I will work to have his amendment adopted.

Mr. President, what my friend from Ohio is saying is what we have been saying since Monday morning.

The Senator is exactly right. I do not know how many times I have stood on this floor and said those of us who are conservatives historically have to stop and look at what is Government here for. Conservatives are generally big spenders when it comes to defense, when it comes to infrastructure. We need to defend America and we need infrastructure. Right now, I am sure there are some States that are not as sensitive as the Senator from Ohio and I are because they do not have the problems, but when we look at what this bill is doing to try to correct the problem of, just as an example, our deteriorating bridges, my State of Oklahoma ranks dead first in terms of the deteriorated condition of bridges, and I chair the committee.

We are going to have to get a bill through. There has been some recent suggestion that it be pared down a little bit. I can assure my colleagues the figure we are talking about right now is a figure that is not acceptable to those on the other side of the Capitol, and this is the only way we can get one.

I thought we were making some headway. We have all of these little procedural hurdles. We are not able to send the amendment of the Senator to the desk, but I will tell the Senator right now I am going to do what I can about it.

First, I do agree with the Senator's amendment and I know how hard he has been working on it. A lot of people do not realize this section was approved by the Congress as part of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966. It is obvious it is not working now and we need to do something about it. Certainly the Senator is as enthusiastic about protecting any of our historical sites as we are, but we need to have something that is workable.

I know there is someone else who wants to speak, but let me give the Senator my assurance, as chairman of the committee, I will do everything I can to make sure he gets his amendment in, which I support. More important than his amendment, we want to get this bill passed so we can get America back to work again.

Remember, not long ago one of the publications in the Capitol had a ``men working'' sign on it, and they put a ``not'' right in the middle: Men not working. That is exactly what is happening right now. If we play around

with the reductions, with the temporary extensions and all of that, we are not going to be able to get people back to work.

We have the infrastructure needs. We have the needs for jobs, and I will be there beside the Senator from Ohio doing what I can to make that a reality.

Before I yield the floor, let me ask my good friend with whom I was privileged to share this morning's chairmanship at the National Prayer Breakfast--one of the truly great moments of my life with my good friend. We are trying to stay on the highway bill. We have others who are going to be coming down. Could I inquire as to how much time the Senator from Florida would like to have?

I ask unanimous consent that he be given 15 minutes and then after I be recognized as having the floor.

I appreciate the statement of my friend from Florida.

I would say, in terms of who the villain is in the deficit we are facing right now, there are two big villains. One is the war, and then the economy. As we started losing economic ground, a downturn back in March of 2000, people didn't realize for every 1 percent change in economic activity it translated into $45 billion in revenue. In other words, as the economy is rebounding now, the revenue is coming back up. Even continuing in the effort, the war effort--which I am afraid is going to last for quite a while--we are going to be facing end strength problems and that will have to go on.

I believe the best thing we can do is do it through the economy. At the same time there are certain things that have to happen in America. We have to do something about roads in America. I probably have as many townhall meetings as anyone. I suggest the Senator from Florida does, too. I can't remember one I have had where they haven't said something about roads.

In Oklahoma what they say is, we can always tell when we are around Thanksgiving time, when we have family coming in, we have friends coming in, we can always know when we get to Oklahoma because of the roads. I add to the Presiding Officer, when they come from Texas they make that comment about Oklahoma roads. So we do have a very serious problem. It seems to be more serious in my State.

Part of that is due to the donor status we have had for quite some time. Of course, we have not had the money with which to do it. I feel an obligation, and believe it is very appropriate for conservatives, to get out and vote in favor of this type of an infrastructure program. This translates directly into jobs, translates directly into the economy, translates directly into increasing economic activity and additional revenue that will come into Government.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., Friday, February 6. I further ask that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate then resume consideration of S. 1072, the highway bill, for the purpose of debate only.

Mr. President, tomorrow morning the Senate will resume consideration of S. 1072, the highway bill. There will be no rollcall votes tomorrow, but Senators are encouraged to come to the floor and speak on the merits of the bill. The majority leader will expand on next week's schedule during tomorrow's session.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Yesterday, we had several occasions where we were trying to stay on the bill, and we kept saying: All right, one more person, one more person, one more person.

As manager of the bill, I am going to do everything I can parliamentarily to stay on the bill and not get into other subjects.

At 2:30.

To do everything to accommodate the Senator from Florida, what I would like to do is stay on the bill until later on this afternoon, and at that time I am sure we are going to come to a point where, because of other things that are happening, there are not going to be Senators who want to speak on the bill, and then we could go to this so the Senator would have the time he requested.

I have no objection if he changes his 3:30 to 5 o'clock. There are some things happening that affect every Senator in here tonight having to do with the National Prayer Breakfast, and I would like to accommodate them as well.

The majority leader will have to get in on this, but I would say even earlier than that. We are going to have amendments. In fact, we have some amendments that will be ready today. We need to get to those and get this bill moving.

Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Nevada.

Yes. I have a letter I read yesterday. It is dated February 2, 2004. I have not heard anything either way about whether or not they are supporting this legislation. But they outlined a set of principles yesterday to which our bill complies. I think the minority leader covered the three criteria that were used that would keep them from opposing the bill, and I believe they have been met. We talked about it yesterday. One is to not increase gas taxes. Second, it would not have any kind of bonding arrangement. Third, that it would not get in the general fund.

The third one is where there is some debate. I trust the Senate Finance Committee. I talked to both sides, Democrats and Republicans, and they came up with something I think meets the criteria. I am satisfied it does.

Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, let me make an observation. We talked about this bill for several hours. Almost everyone who came down was objecting to what their State would get from this formula. When you compare this, starting with the same basic structure of a formula as we did in TEA-21--and remember, in TEA-21, we had the minimum guarantee.

What that did was take arbitrary political percentages and apply them in order to get votes. We have done far more. This takes into consideration the streamlining provisions about which we haven't even talked. We spent months on this in the committee, as our committee members know.

Safety and freight areas have not really been addressed before. This is something of which we can be proud. I have to say, when we put together the charts of all 50 States, there isn't one State that is not treated fairly, doesn't have an increase and doesn't have some kind of logic balancing the donee-donor, balancing the fast-growing States and the low-population States.

All these points are considered, and I think it is a very good bill. I agree with all on the committee.

Mr. President, yesterday we started through this bill. It is a rather lengthy bill. It covers a lot of provisions that haven't even been discussed, and I think a lot of Members are not really aware of some parts of this bill.

As the chairman of the committee, I thought it an obligation to go through this section by section, and I did go through sections 1104 through 1204, where we talked about how this was put together, how the formulas were put together. I also spent about an hour talking about the environmental improvements that are made in this bill.

I confess there are many things in this bill that I would rather have done in a different way, and I am sure Senator Reid and Senator Jeffords would say the same thing. In fact, they have said the same thing. Since we will have to get through this today at some point, I would like to go ahead and start with section 1205 and finish what we started yesterday. I hope any Members who are interested in making comments or offering amendments will come and do so, because I will be doing this in order to get through the bill.

Section 1205 is one in which I was particularly interested. Senator Reid yesterday talked about Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the contributions he made over the years. I felt compelled to stand up and remind him that Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a Tulsa boy. He was from Tulsa, OK, and was one of my very favorite people.

I think it is very appropriate that section 1205 is the designation of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Interstate Highway as a part of the bill. Interstate Highway 86 in the State of New York is specifically designated as the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Interstate Highway in memory of our late colleague.

There are several others who have said good things about him. In fact, in the years I have been in the Senate, Senator Moynihan is the only Senator

about whom I have never heard one negative thing.

Section 1301 is the Federal share section. It continues the statutory provisions that lay out what the Federal share for the highway project will be for different States based on the amount of Federal land within their State. The Federal share provisions of current law use a sliding scale. This scale permits States with large portions of Federal land to match Federal funds with fewer State dollars. That is only reasonable because they are not collecting taxes off of these lands and they should not have to pay the same match.

Due to the decreased taxing ability of the States with a higher percentage of Federal lands, these States are given access to a higher Federal contribution for highway projects within their State. The bill before us today modifies this provision slightly to simplify the calculation used to determine the Federal share rates that apply to each individual State.

I might add that in this bill there are certain things my colleagues will see consistently throughout. One is simplification. One is to put it in language that we can all understand, that the public can understand, that our people back home can understand, and so that the departments of transportation in the various States will have a clear understanding as well, and they will take all of these complicated interpretations.

Another thing my colleagues will find all the way through is a streamlining effort to try to get more roads for the dollar. I think we have successfully done that, reaching a lot of compromises. So this is what my colleagues will see as we go through the bill section by section.

Section 1302 is the transfer of highway and transit funds. There is a technical fix that was requested by the Federal Highway Administration that clarifies that title 23 funds, that is the highway dollars, can be transferred to the transit administration from State to State or from State to another Federal agency as long as the project to be funded is eligible under title 23. I think that is a very reasonable approach.

An example of when this authority could be used is a State that has a congestion problem at or near a border crossing. They may determine that the problem is caused in part by inadequate parking facilities for the Customs Service to conduct truck inspections. To solve their larger congestion problem, it makes sense to provide money to the Customs Service to build parking lot facilities for truck inspections. This has been done administratively in the past, but section 1302 provides very clear guidance so they do not have to sit around and guess what in fact is going to come up.

Section 1303, the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, which is referred to as TIFIA, was established for the first time in TEA-21 to provide Federal credit assistance to major transportation investments. The TIFIA program has proven to be an innovative and successful addition to the conventional grant and reimbursement highway program.

After watching the TIFIA program succeed as a funding device for a few large projects during TEA-21 and after receiving input from stakeholders and recommendations from the administration, the committee bill has made a few changes to the TIFIA program to expand its scope and increase its usability.

The amount of the Federal credit assistance cannot exceed 33 percent of a total project cost. TIFIA offers three different types of financial assistance to the large projects: One, direct loans; two, loan guarantees; and, three, standby lines of credit. The bill also lowers the threshold cost for eligible projects from the TEA-21 level of $100 million down to $50 million to make it available to more people and more projects, making TIFIA accessible to a greater number of large highway projects.

Projects are also eligible for TIFIA assistance when costs are anticipated to equal or exceed 20 percent of Federal highway funds apportioned to that particular State. With the increased emphasis this bill places on freight mobility, the definition of eligible freight- related projects is expanded.

Yes.

I think the Senator was out of the Chamber when I said I eventually wanted to get through this section by section, but I can do this at any time. As soon as the Senator has anything ready, certainly I am interested in taking that up.

Reclaiming my time, I think he had stated he was not prepared to do that right now, but perhaps one will be coming along in a short while.

I have no objection to that. I think it is a good idea, and we will so inform Senator Bond.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we have been trying to get through the explanation of this bill section by section. We have done so now all the way up to section 1304. It seems most people were concerned yesterday about the formula. Now we are addressing another problem. But we have not gotten into the full explanation of the bill. We have gone from section 1104 through section 1303.

I am going to go ahead and proceed. If anyone either has an amendment or wants to be heard on the bill, of course, I will give them that opportunity.

Section 1304 is in regard to the facilitation of international registration plans and international fuel tax agreements.

In response to issues surrounding commerce from Mexico, S. 1072 gives the Secretary of Transportation discretion to provide financial assistance to States participating in the International Registration Plan and the International Fuel Tax Agreement. These States incur certain administrative costs resulting from their service as a home jurisdiction for motor carriers from Mexico.

The International Fuel Tax Agreement and the International Regional Plan are agreements among various U.S. States and Canadian Provinces that facilitate the efficient collection and distribution of fuel taxes and apportioned registration fees among each member jurisdiction.

Under both programs, each motor carrier designates its home State or Province as the jurisdiction responsible for collecting fuel use taxes and fees. Since the implementation of NAFTA, the Mexican Government imposes and collects fuel taxes and registration fees differently from the United States and Canada. The National Governors Association is currently evaluating Mexico and its participation in the IFTA and IRP programs. In the interim, Mexican motor carriers may use individual U.S. States or Canadian Provinces as their home jurisdiction. So we are talking about something that is in the interim until the problem is resolved but is necessary.

Section 1305 is in regard to the National Commission on Future Revenue Sources to Support the Highway Trust Fund and finance the needs of the surface transportation system.

As many of you know, I am personally not one to support expansions of bureaucracy or the creation of innumerable review boards, committees, and commissions. However, this bill creates, and I have found good reason to support, a new temporary--temporary--national commission on future revenue sources to support the highway trust fund and finance the needs of the surface transportation system.

Funding the highway program has already become increasingly more challenging. Even as we debate the funding of this bill, we are confronted with the task of finding innovative and efficient funding methods to capture user fees lost to the fuel tax evasion and a host of other issues that the Finance Committee has done a great job in addressing.

However, one issue that has not been addressed, but must be before the next reauthorization cycle, is Federal incentives for the purchase of hybrid and other fuel-efficient vehicles. Fuel efficiency is a goal I support, but I do not believe it should come at the expense of the highway trust fund. So we have these exemptions, which has the result of reducing the revenues that would otherwise come in, even though the goal or the policy we are trying to establish is, perhaps, an inevitable policy.

We run the risk of making economic and environmental advances at the cost of jeopardizing our primary funding source for the highway trust fund--gas taxes. In recent years, the highway trust fund has seen a decrease in revenues. Constant changes in the automotive industry and the economy as a whole impact user fee revenues. We must continue to identify new and reliable revenue sources to sustain the program.

Most recently, we have seen the increase in the cost of fuel and the spiking that has been going on. That has a direct effect on the amount of revenues that are generated from fuel taxes.

In response to these changing and growing challenges, the new commission created in this bill is established to conduct a comprehensive study of the alternatives available to replace or supplement the existing fuel tax as the principal source of supporting the highway trust fund. We may find that this is going to still remain the principal source, but we do not know because we have never had any central place where we were trying to put together something this creative to replace it.

Specific factors which the commission will examine include, one, the effects of each major tax that goes into the highway trust fund; two, the ability to increase taxes if there are future revenue shortfalls; and, three, potential new sources of revenue to support highway, transit, and other surface transportation programs.

In regard to the scope of the study, the commission is charged with suggesting new or alternative revenue sources to fund the needs of the surface transportation system over the next 30 years or the next 40 years--the next long period of time. It is something we should have done before. This bill might have been easier if we had addressed this in TEA-21.

Now we have, in section 1306, the State infrastructure banks. TEA-21 established a State infrastructure bank pilot program that authorized participation among the States of Missouri, Rhode Island, California, and Florida. This bill reauthorizes the program to allow all States to enter into cooperative agreements with the Secretary of Transportation to set up infrastructure-revolving funds eligible for capitalization with Federal transportation dollars.

The SIB program gives States the capacity to increase the efficiency of their transportation investment and to significantly leverage Federal resources by attracting non-Federal public and private investment.

The program provides greater flexibility to the States by allowing other types of project assistance in addition to the traditional reimbursement grant. States utilizing SIBs are able to provide various forms of nongrant assistance to eligible projects, including at or below market rate subordinate

loans, interest rate buydowns on third party loans, and guarantees and other forms of credit enhancements. Any debt that the SIB issues or guarantees must be of investment grade caliber. The SIB program represents one more innovative financing option. We believe, after having done this with three or four States, that it is something that should be expanded to other States. This is a very positive thing.

Section 1401 is the Highway Safety Improvement Program.

Along with the new equity bonus program, the bill's new core Safety program is one of the crowning pillars of this legislation. It is both devastating and deplorable that motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among American's between the age of 1 and 34-years-old. In 2002 alone, nearly 43,000 people died on our Nation's highways. Although the fatality rate has decreased when compared to the growing number of vehicle miles traveled, the total number of fatal crashes has gradually increased over the life of TEA-21. Through a reorganization of existing safety programs and a significantly increased Federal investment, S. 1072, appropriately referred to as SAFETEA, strives to combat one of the greatest threats faced on our roads today. Not only is the loss of life to unsafe roads and conditions tragic, but vehicle crashes have a huge economic effect manifested in medical costs, property damage, insurance, and the effects of congestion.

In response to the need for safer roads and road conditions, this bill gives heightened attention to improving traffic safety by creating a new core Highway Safety Improvement Program. Under TEA-21 States were required to set-aside 10 percent of their funds apportioned under the Surface Transportation Program for safety projects to eliminate hazardous locations and improve safety at highway-railway crossings. The new Highway Safety Improvement Program preserves the ability of States to continue funding these important projects, while giving the States even greater flexibility to identify and address other traffic safety issues such as work zone safety, traffic enforcement activities, lane and shoulder widening, use of safety warning devices, safety- conscious planning, and improved traffic data collection.

This is just one more effort to recognize that the States are all different. The same shoe does not fit all. We are giving them an expanded role to determine the best way to handle the problems in Vermont as opposed to Oklahoma or any other State.

Recognizing the various and changing safety needs in each State, the bill provides significant flexibility to the States in order to determine how the Federal safety dollars can best be spent to address the areas of greatest need. These are not always the same in each State.

Section 1402 is Operation Lifesaver. Among the existing safety programs that this bill reauthorizes is Operation Lifesaver. This program has proven effective as a national education and awareness campaign dedicated to reducing fatalities and injuries at highway- railway crossings. Operation Lifesaver has utilized various means to educate both drivers and pedestrians about making safe decisions at railroad crossings and has encouraged better engineering to improve safety at rail crossings. Due to the valuable service this program renders and the cost-benefit effectiveness it has sustained, this bill increases funding for the program from $500,000 per year to $600,000 per year and moves the source of funding for Operation Lifesaver from the Surface Transportation Program, STP, to the new Highway Safety Improvement Program.

Section 1403 is license suspension. Another area of concern in regards to highway safety is the intoxicated driver and especial repeat offenders. Current law imposes penalties on States that have not enacted statutes punishing repeat intoxicated drivers with a hard one- year driver's license suspension. However, as the States have reviewed data and adapted their sentencing structures for repeat offenders in this area, they have found that habitual drunk drivers whose license has already been suspended frequently choose to drive without a license, minimizing the effectiveness of the current State of the law. In the interest of public safety, some States have actually accepted the consequences of the Federal sanction and foregoing available Federal funding in order to impose more effective sentencing of these repeat offenders. This bill recognizes the reality of repeat drunk drivers driving on roads with a suspended license and the wisdom of more effective alternative sentencing schemes. Thus, the bill updates the ``repeat offender'' sanction in title 23 of the code to allow States to incorporate ignition interlock or similar devices when sentencing repeat intoxicated drivers.

At this point we have come through all the way to section 1404. I would like to see if the minority leader of the committee, who has been so great to work with, the ranking minority member, Senator Jeffords from Vermont, has any comments to make about these sections.

First, I agree with the ranking member of the committee. We have come a long way. We are ready shortly and will be prepared to deal with some amendments. In the meantime, let's wade through this thing a little bit more.

Section 1404. Bus axle weight exemption. SAFETEA holds over-the-road buses and intrastate public transit buses to the same standards that inner-city transit buses must meet with regard to axle weight, air quality, and requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, the bill exempts any over-the-road buses or intrastate public transit bus from the maximum gross weight limitations imposed by the State.

Section 1405 is the Safe Routes to School Act. This was a provision that handled a number of compromises. It is one we are all concerned about. It has a continuing emphasis on safety. The bill introduces a new program that directly deals with safe routes to school, a safety improvement program established in SAFETEA. Projects eligible under the Safe Routes to School Program are already eligible under the larger Highway Safety Improvement Program.

However, Safe Routes to School provides a dedicated and protected funding source for pedestrian and bicycle safety projects near schools. The program is limited to projects and activities that will impose safety within 2 miles of primary and secondary schools. It sets aside $70 million per year for infrastructure and behavioral activities, such as sidewalk improvements, traffic-calming measures, speed reduction,

bicycle facilities, pedestrian crossings, traffic signal improvements, public awareness campaigns, and traffic education and enforcement.

I think that is significant. We have noticed, between the time we have been dealing with ISTEA and TEA-21, there have been increased fatalities in our young kids. We expanded this program during the course of our committee consideration. I think it was a good compromise to make on the purchase of equipment.

When conducting projects under the Federal program's authorization under this bill, some States will occasionally find the equipment necessary to complete the project may be cheaper to purchase than it would be to rent for the duration of the project. In such cases, this bill instructs them to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for the purchase of expensive equipment above specified levels in order to evaluate the savings associated with purchasing the equipment compared to renting the equipment for the duration of the project.

Everything we are doing here is trying to get the very most out of the dollars we are spending in terms of safety and equipment and road construction and the other things we are dealing with in S. 1072.

Section 1407 is work zone safety. Over a thousand deaths occurred in work zones during 2002 due to traffic crashes alone. There has been a lot of awareness in the public about this fact and States are trying to deal with it. We felt it appropriate to have some language in this bill. Although work zones represent a critical component of infrastructure development, they also pose a unique safety challenge for those on the road, and to road workers in particular.

S. 1072 attempts to minimize the injuries and fatalities in work zones by imposing insurance requirements, requiring the use of ITS technologies and safety budgeting in construction and contracting. The Secretary of Transportation is directed to encourage States to choose contractors that carry general liability insurance of at least $15 million. Transportation projects costing more than $15 million are encouraged to include continuously monitored work zone intelligent transportation systems, or ITS systems.

Section 1408. Worker injury prevention and free flow of vehicular traffic. In addition to the provision relating to the safety of workers in work zones just mentioned, SAFETEA also directs the Secretary to promulgate regulations requiring road workers to wear high-visibility clothing, with the goal of decreasing worker injury and maintaining a free flow of traffic.

In section 1501, regarding the integration of natural resource concerns into State and metropolitan transportation planning, my counterpart, the ranking minority member, was very interested in a lot of the parts of the bill that deal with natural resource concerns and State and metropolitan transportation planning. If the Senator from Vermont would like to go over some of these sections, starting with section 1501, it might be appropriate since he had a lot to do with these particular areas.

(Mr. SUNUNU assumed the Chair.)

Mr. President, I appreciate that very much. It is probably a good idea to set it aside at this time. We will have ample time later to discuss it.

Mr. President, that is not set aside by unanimous consent.

There may be others in the Chamber who want to be heard concerning the highway bill. If that is not the case, I will go ahead and continue discussing this. It is our hope to go through it section by section. We are quite a ways along in doing that.

First, I will restate some of the comments I made in the past about this bill. We have spent in the committee an entire year working on this legislation. We have had numerous hearings on various environmental concerns, procedural concerns. We had State representation at hearings about many of the parts of the bill that will end up giving the States more responsibility to take care of some of their needs. We had a chance to talk about some of the problems voiced in the Senate.

As far as the position of the administration, I do not know what more we can do. We have gone through the objections they had, or the three statements they made, in terms of finding it not to be acceptable. These have been met.

We have serious infrastructure needs now. The State system is 50 years old; 32 percent of our major roads are in poor or remedial condition; 29 percent of the bridges are structurally deficient. I am more emotional regarding the 29 percent bridge figure because Oklahoma ranks No. 1. Missouri is No. 2 in percentage of bridges that are structurally deficient.

We have 36 percent of the Nation's urban rail vehicles and maintenance facilities in substandard or poor condition. And 29 percent of the Nation's bus fleet and maintenance facilities are in substandard condition. The list goes on.

I am particularly sensitive to this, having served for 8 years in the other body on the Environment and Public Works Committee, where we talked about this and watched this as the reauthorizations took place. I participated in both ISTEA and in TEA-21, in both cases, serving at that time in the other body.

I know the way things were done were a little distasteful for me, but we came up with three authorization bills. It is our hope to be deliberate and spend, as we have, a year in looking at all the problems, seeing what would be better than the system used before.

In the past, we had section 1104, minimum guarantees. That has been replaced by the Equity Bonus Program. The minimum guarantees were arbitrary, politically driven percentages each State had. It was the thought that when you get to the point where you have enough votes to pass it, you did not care. We did not want to do that. So we took into consideration the donor status of States, we took into consideration the rapid growing States, States such as Texas, California, Nevada, and Florida, and we actually have ceilings as well as floors to try to satisfy as many people as possible.

Yesterday, we had a number of people come to the floor saying the formula was unfair. We took each State, State by State, which I am happy to do. We have the capability of doing it, again, to show that it is not unfair. We have a formula now and everyone benefits. There is no State that gets less than 10 percent more than they had before and it takes care of the problems.

The donor States have always been a problem. My State has been a donor State since the program began. So the fact that we will all end up with a 95-percent status is very significant.

We have never adequately handled the safety problems. We know about the deaths on the highway: 43,000 people each year dying on the highway. While the percentage has not gone up, the numbers have. We are addressing that.

The intermodal connections and freight movement were never adequately addressed by the previous bills. These are addressed.

Streamlining, so that many of the problems we have--some environmental, some other types of problems--can be dealt with more rapidly and in advance so we can keep the construction going.

We have the IPAM program that will take these programs that are ready to go and get them moving right away. If we are going to do it, do it now and get the people employed. A lot of people are concerned about jobs. Certainly there is no bigger job anywhere.

It has been a long process. I know some Members just do not want a bill, but we will get through the process. We will get a bill and get people back to work and rebuild the infrastructure.

We left off on section 1612. I will handle a couple of sections. The Senator from Missouri will arrive in about 5 minutes with some subjects to address.

Section 1613 is the improved interagency consultation.

Yes.

Anyone who wants to speak so long as it is on the highway bill.

I have completed my remarks and there is no objection.

I was happy to do that. I will continue going through section by section.

When we talk about improved interagency consultation, this is another area where this bill is different from the reauthorizations we had in the past. We had intra-agency consultation as well as consultation at the various levels of Government. The States have a much larger voice in the recognition that they are more aware of the problems that exist than we are in Washington. It is very positive. Therefore, the States and MPOs are encouraged to consult with State and local air quality agencies in developing criteria from CMAQ projects and when making decisions as to which projects and programs to fund.

Section 1614 is the evaluation assessment of the CMAQ projects. To ensure that information on successful CMAQ projects is widely available, the Department of Transportation is directed to consult with the EPA to evaluate and assess a representative sample of CMAQ projects to maintain and disseminate a database of these projects.

Section 1615 is synchronized planning and conformity timelines, requirements, and horizon. Currently, the schedules for demonstrating conformity are not the same as the schedules for adopting long-range transportation plans and transportation improvement programs. That is TIPS. This disconnect has caused some areas to be in a continuous planning and conformity cycle.

In response to this inconsistency, the bill aligns the long-range plan updates, TIP updates, and conformity determinations for metropolitan areas on consistent 4-year cycles. Heretofore, there were various cycles and this conforms them to each other.

The bill also changes how far into the future the conformity determination must look to more closely match the length of time covered by the State's air quality plan referred to as a State implementation plan, or SIP plan.

Currently, conformity determinations take a 20-year outlook on the transportation planning side, even though most SIPs cover no more than 10 years. Obviously, we are trying to conform them with each other.

Section 1616 is in regard to the transition to new air quality standards. EPA plans to designate nonattainment areas for the new 8- hour ozone standard, that we have gone through just a few years ago, and the new fine particulate standard, at PM2.5, this year. Areas that have not previously been designated as nonattainment for the same pollutant will have 3 years to submit SIPs which include the motor vehicle emissions budget used to determine conformity. However, only a 1-year grace period is allowed before having to demonstrate conformity. Because of this, an area may have 2 years during which it must use some other means of demonstrating conformity.

Nonattainment areas are given the option of using the motor vehicle emissions budget from an approved SIP for the most recent prior standard for that pollutant. For example, an area that is in nonattainment for the 1-hour ozone standard and is designated as being in nonattainment for the new 8-hour ozone standard may use its 1-hour budget to determine conformity until it has an approved budget for the 8-hour standard.

Nonattainment areas are also given the option of using other currently available tests for demonstrating conformity without an approved air quality SIP.

Section 1617 is in regard to reduced barriers to air quality improvements. Nonattainment areas can use transportation control measures, such as HOV lanes, transit projects, park-and-ride lots, ride-share programs, and pedestrian and bicycle facilities to improve air quality. These TCMs are often included in the State's air quality SIP. Currently, if a State determines it would be better served by substituting one type of TCM for another, the State must already have a substitution mechanism in its approved State implementation plan or it must revise its plan.

This bill provides a substitution mechanism for all States, provided that the TCM to be substituted achieves the same or greater emission reductions as the TCM being replaced, based on analysis using the latest planning assumptions and current models.

Now, it has been our intention, as we announced before, that the chairman of the Transportation Subcommittee, Senator Bond, would be recognized at this time for the purpose of----

Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.

Madam President, I believe I have the floor.

Thank you, Madam President.

Section 1618 is in regard to the air quality monitoring data influenced by exceptional events.

This bill directs EPA to promulgate regulations governing the handling of air quality-monitoring data influenced by exceptional events, such as forest fires or volcanic eruptions, certainly something of great interest to the Senator from Arizona. These types of natural activities should not influence whether a region is meeting its Federal air quality goals.

The EPA is also required to reevaluate its approach to modeling carbon monoxide emissions from motor vehicles to ensure that it is appropriate for cold-weather States, such as Alaska.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business, with Senators speaking for up to 30 minutes each.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

As chairman of the EPW Committee and with the concurrence of the majority of the committee, I ask unanimous consent that the committee amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.

Mr. President, with the agreement of both sides, we will recognize the Senator from Florida, Mr. Nelson, for 10 minutes on a subject other than the highway bill.

Mr. President, we have been yielding to Members on other subjects. I was glad to do so, but we were supposed to be on the highway bill for discussion about an hour ago. It is my wish not to recognize anyone, so long as we have speakers on the highway bill. I understand I get primary recognition, and I can't do this as managed time, but it is my desire to recognize the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee for whatever time he should take, and immediately following that, the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Voinovich.

Before Senator Jeffords talks, let me say, again, as I did several times yesterday, how much I appreciate his cooperation in working together on this very difficult bill and coming to the point where we are today.

Mr. President, I see the minority leader. I certainly defer to the minority leader.

Mr. President, I thank the minority leader for the excellent statement. We have a new chart on job opportunities which talks about the cumulative effect when a job is offered--say a construction job on a bridge or highway--and what that does to the rest of the economy. It is about 2.8 million jobs as opposed to some of the figures we have been using, one-fourth of that number. It is very significant.

The Senator from Ohio gave an excellent statement also. The State of Ohio, in terms of new job opportunities, is No. 5 in the Nation under this bill. The Senator has done an excellent job. I am sure the people of Ohio are very appreciative of the job opportunities that will be there as a result of the legislation we hope to pass in the next few days.

The Senator from Ohio, who has vast experience in clean air, was a breath of fresh air when he came in, someone who really has the answers. He was the chairman of the Clean Air Committee of the National Association of Governors. His expertise is very much appreciated.

Senator Jeffords and others have already mentioned the difficulties in putting together a formula, considering the fast-growing States, with a ceiling there. We have some of the small States, such as that of the Presiding Officer, in terms of population, which have to be considered because even though it is a small population there are a lot of roads that have to be cared for. Taking into consideration all of these considerations was not easy.

However, when we compare what we have done with what has been done in the past, I am very proud of it. The equity bonus program replaces the minimum guarantees.

Now, I have been criticized for the way I simplify my explanation of minimum guarantees, but it is pretty accurate; that is, we took a percentage of the total amount of money and gave it to each State until we got 60 votes, not caring too much what happened after that. We took into consideration all the issues we have been talking about.

The bill does four things, essentially. It takes care of the donor States. I have been part of a donor State for as long as I can remember, certainly as long as I have been in the Senate. We were down below 80 percent, and as mentioned by the Senator from Ohio, ISTEA, then TEA-21, and now with this bill, we are up to 95 percent.

Streamlining provisions is very important. It is important we have money to spend on road construction, but also we can get the maximum out of the dollars we do spend. We go a long way to making this a reality.

The third major area is that of safety. We have talked about the number of deaths on the highways. It has to be addressed. That is why we named this SAFETEA, with many safety provisions, at the same time allowing the States to come, recognizing they know more about their States than we do in Washington.

And lastly, the area of freight movement.

With that, it is my desire throughout the day today when there are not speakers to be heard on the highway bill to go through this, section by section, and see specifically how these things are handled.

If any Members who come to the floor want to be heard on the highway bill, I will suspend. Of course, we will break in 20 minutes for our policy luncheon.

I start with section 1101, the authorization of appropriations. We are talking about $255 billion in contract authority over the next 6 years. This was difficult to come up with. At the same time, we have $56.5 billion contract authority in transit, for a total of $311 billion, considerably more than the Budget Committee originally came up with, considerably more than in the President's budget.

And we have received, only yesterday, the President's budget message. I think, however--and I did talk to the President yesterday--when he realizes fully the great work the Finance Committee did--the fact that we now have the offsets necessary to do this without increasing the deficit--the President is going to be more supportive than he has been in the past.

So this represents an overall increase of 31 percent over TEA-21. The link between a robust economy and a strong transportation infrastructure is undeniable. The movement of people and goods is one of the foremost indicators of a growing economy and job creation.

The President recommended a funding level of $200 billion for reauthorization. Given the critical infrastructure and safety needs of the program, we thought it imperative to authorize a higher level of funding for the coming 6 years.

I recall a study that was made--and I do not have the exact figures, but the amount of money even that we are suggesting right now merely maintains where we are today. It was discussed by the minority leader that we have a bridge crisis, and I was wanting to interrupt him to say that my State has the distinction of having the largest percentage of functionally obsolete bridges. We are hoping to correct that with this bill.

On the other end of the spectrum, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has introduced a bill funding highways and transit at $375 billion, which is considerably over our $311 billion. However, achieving this astronomical figure would require raising gas taxes by 13.5 cents per gallon during the next 6 years, in addition to utilizing a number of other costly new financing measures.

The vote before you today recognizes the realities of available revenues without the need for increasing gas taxes, and, I might add, or increasing the deficit. It is designed to make the most of every available dollar to produce better and safer roads by creating thousands of new jobs every year and stimulating the national economy.

In that regard, the Department of Transportation estimates that every $1 billion of Federal transportation funds translates into 47,500 jobs. By the way, that is not a fictitious number. We have had several studies that were done. We realize it is accurate. However, when you say new job opportunities, it is about four times that. If someone takes a construction job, that person is buying more goods and services, and that means manufacturing is going to go up and there are going to be many other jobs. So this figure is a very conservative figure.

We estimate that the SAFETEA will increase the size of the job market by 700,000 but create over 2 million new employment opportunities. I think that is what we need to be talking about.

Section 1102 is an obligation ceiling. The principle that was used to develop obligation limitations was to minimize the gap between the OBLIM or obligation limitations in contract authority levels. This empowers the States to utilize as much available contract authority as possible while still providing them maximum flexibility.

We were able to achieve a total obligation limitation of $238 billion. This is what was recommended in the Reid-Bond amendment that carried this Chamber with 79 votes. This is consistent with that amendment to the budget resolution. So there was a lot of hard work from the Finance Committee and the leadership of Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Baucus, and I thank them for the great work they did.

Section 1103 is the apportionment section. In addition to the overall increases experienced by all programs, the bill makes important changes to the apportionment of a few specific programs. Under TEA-21, the administrative expenses of the Federal Highway Administration were funded as a takedown from the various core programs. This bill recognizes the separate importance of costs associated with the administration of the overall highway program. Therefore, the bill funds Federal highway administrative expenses as its own separate apportionment protecting the authority of the individual core programs or the autonomy of the individual core programs and the administrative fund itself.

Of the amount designated for program administration, the Secretary of Transportation is also given the authority to transfer an appropriate amount for the administrative expenses of the Appalachian Highway Development System.

As a result of the 2000 census, 46 new metropolitan planning organizations or MPOs have been established throughout the country and are now eligible

for Federal transportation planning funding.

We have devoted a lot of time and a lot of attention in this bill to planning as well as to assisting States in doing what they do best, also, which we will get to in a later section. To respond to this expanded need, we have increased the program set-aside for MPOs from 1 percent under ISTEA to 1.5 percent, along with the overall increase in program funds which will help to address the growing transportation planning needs.

TEA-21 used a minimum guarantee. I have been talking about this, and that really constituted a percentage. And it is just not the way this should be done. We wanted it in our formulas, and we wanted it in an attempt to get our donor States up to 90.5 percent. We used a minimum guarantee calculation to guarantee that States received back at least 90.5 percent--that is what they did in TEA-21--90.5 percent of their percentage contribution to the highway trust fund.

The Minimum Guarantee Program was driven by the political distribution known as the 1104 table. I will not go into that because this is somewhat redundant. We have talked about this in the past. It was purely politically driven.

To contrast that, the new Equity Bonus Program does away with the table in TEA-21 which determined each State's percentage share of the total highway fund, the political table to which I have been referring. Rather than have a State's return be set by a politically driven table, the Equity Bonus Program determines each State's return by first relying on the program distribution formulas. The equity bonus calculation identifies a justifiable nexus in equity between the underlying formulas and responsible balanced growth for donor and donee States alike.

If a State fails to reach the minimum return in any year based on the formulas, that State would receive an equity bonus award in addition to their formula. It should bring them up to the required level. I cannot think of a better and more equitable way of doing this.

While we allow the formulas to work under the new Equity Bonus Program, we also recognized that there would be some inequities if we allowed the formulas to be the sole factor in distributing dollars to the States. In order to increase the minimum rate of return for donor States, while ensuring an equitable transition for donee States, rates of return are subject to an annual growth ceiling to smooth out the phase-in of the increased minimum returns.

This accomplishes two goals: It keeps the cost of the Equity Bonus Program affordable; secondly, it ensures that donee States are still able to grow so that there are no States with growth less than 10 percent in dollars. I repeat that. Of all 50 States, every State gets at least an increase of 10 percent.

Now, I have heard from a lot of the people whose State falls into the different categories. One is the category of a fast-growing State, and, obviously, they would prefer that the ceilings not be there so they would bump into them. But if you do not do that, then you would hear equally from some of the older States, such as New York and Pennsylvania, that would have to pay the price if we did not have some type of a ceiling.

For donor States, the effect of the growth ceiling is that a State with a rate of return above 90.5 percent in 2003 will reach a 95 percent return sooner than a State that received only a 90.5 percent return, or below, in 2003. The closer a State was to 95 percent in 2003, the sooner it will reach 95 percent.

Conversely, those States at 90.5 percent in 2003, such as my State of Oklahoma, would likely take longer to reach 95 percent. The time it takes a State to reach 95 percent depends on how much equity bonus funding the State receives and how much faster than the national average that State is increasing its contributions to the highway trust fund. That is taken into consideration as a part of this formula.

Recognizing that States with a lower tax basis due to low population, such as the State of Wyoming and others, or low income face an added challenge of maintaining the transportation infrastructure, the bill sets their TEA-21 rate of return as a minimum for future years.

Section 1105 is the revenue aligned budget authority, or RABA, as we have referred to it. The huge 2003 negative adjustment in the revenue aligned budget authority made it clear that some changes were needed in the RABA calculation in order to provide greater stability and more accurate predictions and less fluctuation in coming years. This is true. The States can get so much more for their dollars if they can predict into the future how they are going to use those dollars and what those dollars are going to amount to.

As I have indicated before, I believe the underlying principle of RABA is an important fiscal policy that highway expenditures should be tied to highway trust fund revenues.

The bill modifies the RABA calculations so that annual funding level adjustments are less dependent on future anticipated receipts and more dependent upon actual receipts to the highway trust fund. If the RABA adjustment in any fiscal year is negative, the amount of contract authority apportioned to the State for that year will be reduced by an amount equal to the negative RABA. However, if the balance of the highway trust fund is greater than $6 billion, then there will be no negative RABA adjustments.

Section 1201 is the infrastructure performance and maintenance program, or IPAM. There is a lot of interest in this program, obviously. The IPAM program is intended for ready-to-go projects that States can undertake and complete within a relatively short timeframe. As a result, States are given 6 months to obligate IPAM funds. We designed this discretionary program to promote projects that resulted in immediate benefits for the highway system's condition and performance while avoiding long-term commitments of funds. The program also provides further economic stimulus to the economy and provides a way to aid in spending down balances in the highway trust fund.

That is very important right now. We are very sensitive to the somewhat job crisis. We have seen our economy on its way up again. However, there is a lag between economic recovery and the jobs. IPAM is going to give more construction sooner, provide more jobs and more jobs sooner. Then, of course, when you put the new job opportunities factor to that, that is going to be very meaningful to job recovery in America.

The States may obligate funds for projects eligible under Interstate Maintenance, National Highway System, Surface Transportation System, Highway Safety Improvements Program, Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement, or CMAC, and the Highway Bridge Program. Eligible projects under IPAM include the preservation, maintenance, or improvement of existing highway infrastructure and operational improvements to address recurring highway congestion.

Section 1202 is the future of the surface transportation system title. In order to be prepared for future reauthorizations of this legislation, we require the Secretary of Transportation to perform a long-term investigation into the surface transportation infrastructure needs of the Nation.

Specifically, the bill directs the Secretary to look at: the current condition and performance of the interstate system; the future of the interstate system in 15 years or 30 years or 50 years; expected demographics and business uses that impact the surface transportation system; the effect of changing vehicle types, modes of transportation, traffic volumes, and fleet size and weights--we have seen such a dramatic change in the types of vehicles that we drive that we never could have anticipated back when we were putting together ISTEA or one of the previous programs--possible design changes; rural, urban, interregional, and national needs; improvements in emergency preparedness; real-time performance data collection; and future funding needs and potential approaches to collect those funds.

What we are saying is, we are trying to prepare for the future. It is important what we do for the next 6 years, as we go through this reauthorization. I think we have done a good job with that. But things will happen 6 years from now that we cannot anticipate.

That is what the Secretary of Transportation will be looking at and coming back with, so we will be able to anticipate some of the things we will be looking at 6 years from now.

A very important section is 1203. That is the freight transportation gateways, freight intermodal connections. Freight movement in America is expected to grow dramatically in volume and value over the coming decades. Throughout the reauthorization hearings, the Environment and Public Works Committee heard concerns about inadequate freight facilities, insufficient capacity, and insufficient connections.

The GAO recently released a report, dated October 2003, a little over a month ago, regarding freight transportation, recommending strategies needed to address planning and financing limitations. The report noted that the major challenges to freight mobility all shared a common theme--congestion, including overcrowded highways, freight specific check points.

Additionally, the GAO reported two main limitations that stakeholders encounter in addressing these challenges. The first related to the limited visibility that freight projects receive in the planning and prioritization process. S. 1072 directly addresses this problem by creating a freight transportation coordinator at the State level to facilitate public and private collaboration in developing solutions to freight transportation and freight gateway problems. This is one more area where we will have an increased emphasis on States.

The bill also ensures that intermodal freight transportation needs are integrated into project development and planning processes. The second limitation that the GAO found was inhibiting stakeholders was that Federal funding programs tend to dedicate funds to a single mode of transportation or nonfreight purpose, thus limiting freight project eligibility among some programs. S. 1072 deals with this problem as well as making intermodal projects eligible for STP and NHS funding.

The Freight Gateways program found in this bill promotes intermodal improvements for freight movement through significant trade gateways, ports and hubs, and intermodal connections to the national highway system. States and localities are encouraged to adopt new financing strategies to leverage State, local, and private investments in freight transportation gateways, thus maximizing the impact of each Federal dollar.

The Freight Gateways program is funded from a set-aside of 2 percent of each State's NHS apportionment. However, in the spirit of State flexibility and ensuring that funds go to the areas of greatest need, a State is not required to spend the 2 percent of their NHS apportionment if they can certify to the Secretary that their intermodal connections are adequate. I think this is a recognition that the States do know more about their needs than the Federal Government. That is one of the trends of this.

I know we are ready to recess. I yield to my colleague Senator Jeffords for the remainder of the time.

They are even talking to each other now.

I would agree with those comments. However, I think we have the basic formula, and this is something for which I am going to be fighting because once you break into this and change the formula, that is going to change every State. That is something we have spent over a year now working out to get as much equity as possible. We look forward to the input from Members who are not on the committee.

Mr. President, 12:30 has arrived and we are planning to break.

Mr. President, it is my understanding we do not have anyone to speak on the highway bill. There are several people who desire to speak on other matters. We will have no objection, although if we get back on the bill we would like to enjoy some type of priority.

He is in the cloakroom. May I inquire about how much time the Senator from Illinois would like to have?

We will go back into a quorum call, then, until the Senator from Pennsylvania arrives.

Mr. President, I listened with great interest. I think he has some excellent points, I say to the Senator from Pennsylvania. He extensively quoted Churchill. I would like to add another quote to that:

Truth is incontrovertible. Ignorance can deride it, panic

may resent it, malice may destroy it, but there it is.

I say that because there are some things--It is only natural when the Senator from Pennsylvania is not serving on the committee that he would not be quite as familiar with the development of the formula as perhaps someone who is on the committee. So I would like to respond to a couple of points because I really believe we have a very fair formula.

First of all, the formula Congressman Shuster put together is the basis for this bill. I happened to serve in the other body in the committee under Congressman Shuster back during the development of TEA- 21. During that time, of course, he was pretty notorious getting a lot for his State. I understand that. I should be more that way myself.

But I would only like to suggest--if staff would be good enough to hold this chart up--this is Pennsylvania. Over here, take 1384 in the red, that is the average amount for each year. If you took all 6 years in the TEA-21 and averaged them out, that would be the amount. That would be $1.3 billion. Then, if you watch each year as it goes up, you end up with a substantially higher amount.

Let's compare that, if we may, with California. I saw an op-ed piece by the senior Senator from California in which she was very complimentary of the way this worked. If you look, you see they end up in almost the same place as Pennsylvania does percentage wise. But it all comes in the last year. That is because they are a donor State. In order for the large donor States to be able ultimately to reach 95 percent, it has to be done in the last year. I think we all understand that.

But when you compare the two charts, I would say if she is satisfied, then the Senator from Pennsylvania should be elated.

I would like to share one other thing, too. I chair the committee. If you take the total amount of road miles that we have in Oklahoma compared to Pennsylvania, it is almost the same, when you take out the toll roads. Of course, we are not dealing with toll roads here.

With the same number of road miles, each year Pennsylvania gets 3.5 times as much as Oklahoma gets. If anyone should be complaining, using that as a criterion, I should be the one.

I think it is very important you share with your constituents some of the things that are in this bill and how well I believe Pennsylvania is treated.

The Senator from Pennsylvania talked about bridges. According to the surveys that have been taken by the Department of Transportation, Oklahoma's bridges are No. 50 in the Nation--way behind Pennsylvania. These are things that need to be corrected. Many of these things will be corrected in this bill.

So I would only say formulas are very difficult. There is no magic formula that is going to make everyone happy. I remember the formulas in TEA-21 and ISTEA, and there were complaints from many States on those. No formula is going to satisfy everyone, but I honestly believe, when I look at Pennsylvania and compare it to California or Oklahoma or some of the other States, that they are very well cared for.

With that, I yield to any questions the Senator might have.

I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Pennsylvania. I in no way want him to misinterpret the comments I made as being critical of his analysis. Formulas are very difficult. TEA-21 is something we know was totally politically driven. That was a percentage of the total amount of money, so when they got up to 60 votes they could just shut the door and say: Fine, we have our bill. We tried not to do that, take consideration of donor/donee status, fast- growing States.

By the way, you heard the senior Senator from Texas yesterday talking about her dissatisfaction with what Texas was doing. When it gets down to it, under this formula or any other formula, if you do something for a fast growing State that keeps bumping up against the ceiling, you are going to be having a problem. If you try to correct that, it is going to go into the donee States, of which of course Pennsylvania is one.

It is a difficult choice. We spent a whole year working on this and I hope you have a chance to really look at it closely.

OK, in the first year, right now, you are a donee State.

I was referring to 2003, where it is a very substantial donee State, recognizing it goes up and down.

By the way, Oklahoma has never been a donee State. Oklahoma was bumped against the ceilings: 73 percent, 80 percent, and then 90.5 percent, and of course we are looking forward to getting up to 95 percent, as I am sure the Senator from Arizona is going to share that enthusiasm.

On occasions, yes.

Mr. President, let me say how much I always enjoy the junior Senator from Arizona. We were both elected to the other body in the same year, 1986. We both came here to the Senate in 1994. Neither of us is shy about the fact we are conservatives. He has heard me say many times that conservatives in some areas are pretty big spenders-- that is, national defense and infrastructure--believing that is really what we are supposed to be doing in Washington.

I don't think you can find a State that has had more road problems than my State of Oklahoma. It is kind of a going joke there. Each holiday, so many people come for Thanksgiving, and they say: We could always tell when we got to Oklahoma because of the roads. We always knew when we left Arizona and got over to Oklahoma because the roads aren't nearly as good as they are in Arizona.

I would suggest a couple of things are worthwhile talking about. I have a chart. I want to help the Senator from Arizona when he goes home. I will let him take this chart home. When you look at Arizona, keeping in mind that the average State increase under SAFETEA is 35.6 percent, that is 40.23 percent. That is a huge amount over the average. The Senator from Arizona says it is because they have been on the short end of the stick for a long period of time. I can identify with that because being from the State of Oklahoma, we were at the very bottom. We had to come up by virtue of formula to 77 percent, to 80, then to 90.5, and now hopefully to 95. So that is a very large amount of money.

If you look in the far left of this chart, you have what Arizona averaged under TEA-21. That was $463 million. Then it shows each year thereafter, for the next 6 years, what happens by comparison. With all the difficulties we have in working on any kind of a formula, the Senator from Arizona and I have talked about the complexities of formulas. We have donee States, donor States, fast-growing States, low- population, low-density States. Consequently, to come up with some kind of a formula that takes care of all that, we took all of those things into consideration.

Contrast that with TEA-21. In TEA-21, they had a formula as a base, but they had a percentage. Every State had a percentage. When they finally got up to 60 votes, that was it: We don't care what happens to the rest of you. We have our 60 votes.

We didn't try to do that. That would have been easier, I suppose. I would probably be making the same number of people mad, but nonetheless we didn't do that. We tried to use the logical things to take into consideration in developing the formula.

The Senator talks about a veto. I know this is just a difference in interpretation. The Senator from Arizona is on the Finance Committee. I am not on it. Consequently, I went to the chairman, Senator Grassley, and I said to

him, some time ago: This is what I feel we need to do. It is up to the Finance Committee to figure out how we get there.

The Senator from Arizona ran over it pretty exhaustively, and I bow to his superior intelligence in terms of the finance package because he is on the committee. But when I look over the fuel tax fraud compliance, that is something that came along a little bit later. I think that is real. My staff says that is a conservative figure, the 2.5 cents and the 5.2 cents on ethanol.

The interest, you agree, should go back to the highway trust fund. Spending down the balance is reasonable. I can remember back when we had balances of $18 billion in the highway trust fund. I spent 8 years in the other body on the Public Works and Transportation Committee where we started chipping away on that. And we all know the reason that was there to start with. It goes back to the Lyndon Johnson days, when they were trying to make it look as if the money they were going to be spending was not going to have huge deficits. So they said, let's just go ahead and apply that when we are drawing up our budget. We have changed all that, and we are making great headway in spending that down to a reasonable level.

The $6.5 billion, everybody does agree, is reasonable and I am sure the committee did also. Then on some of the clarifications on the transfer of the gas guzzler tax to the highway trust fund, it should have been there to start with. What we are trying to do is undo some of the damage that has been done to the trust fund over the years. We are doing that with this bill.

As far as a veto is concerned, let me share something that goes into a little more detail than the Senator from Arizona did. We have a letter here that expresses the current feelings, dated February 2, just a couple days ago. And in this letter from Secretary Mineta, this is the administration's position. They said, yes, we recognize we need more money for infrastructure. That is something we all agree and they certainly agree is necessary. They said, if you can get to the Bond- Reid amount without doing three things, then we would support you.

No. 1 would be you would not be increasing gas taxes. We are not going to increase gas taxes. Secondly, we are not going to play around. You know the games you come up with. Let's have a bonding program. You and I both know most of these bonding programs are nothing more than borrowing in some way from the future and encumbering future revenues. Or third--this is our biggest controversy with each other--that highway spending should be financed from the highway trust fund, not from the general fund of the Treasury. I grant you, the last item you talked about is coming from the general fund. I contend it should not have been. It should have been in the trust fund to start with.

That is an argument you and I could have a disagreement on, but I look at it perhaps with a little bit of bias, sitting on the committee and saying: All right, Finance Committee, if you can come up with this, this is what is best for America. I felt they did. And the chairman has told me he believed they did. We had Senator Thomas on the floor, who is one of your colleagues on the committee, who I think is favorably disposed to the results of the work of the Finance Committee.

Of course.

I appreciate the response. I know the Senator to be very sincere. The time that we spent--we are talking about 12 months we have been anguishing over this issue to come up with something that is fair. It is not perfect. It is better than it was under TEA-21. We went to the Finance Committee and said: Can you get us there? It is my information that we got there and, consequently, I still stand behind the bill. We have an honest disagreement on that.

Mr. President, I suggest that, as the Senator from Arizona returns home, he ignore the 40-percent increase and go home and say $1.11 billion new dollars. Perhaps they can relate to that.

I know Senator Corzine wants to speak and several others want to be heard but not necessarily on the highway bill. At the appropriate time, I will ask unanimous consent that there be a period for morning business.

Before I do that, I see the chairman of the subcommittee is here. I ask Senator Bond if he has anything further to say insofar as the highway bill is concerned.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri. I also would like to say that it has been a very difficult task developing this legislation. While it seems as though all some colleagues want to talk about is the formula in terms of money, there are many other issues we dealt with--environmental issues, streamlining issues, safety issues, issues that are of paramount concern to everyone. A compromise was made on all of those issues--some I don't like, but we did compromise.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I amend that to up to 20 minutes for the first speaker and 10 minutes thereafter.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I thank the Chair.

Will the Senator yield?

Is the Senator aware that Patrick Moynihan was born and raised in my city of Tulsa? He was the first one when I came here--not to the Senate but to the other body--to whom I came over to talk. We developed a very close relationship. Someone could wonder, how could this be--you have one who is a dedicated liberal, one who is a dedicated conservative, having that affection.

When I was elected to this body in 1994, his office was next door to me. I confess right now before all these people, when the bells rang for a vote, I would go and look down the hall and wait until Daniel Patrick Moynihan

was coming up so I could walk and talk with him on the way over. He was just a remarkable person. There is a lot of dedication to him in what we are doing today.

First of all, I reextend my appreciation to the Senator from Nevada for all the help he has been. His expertise is well known in this Chamber, and he has been on the opposite side of me probably more than on my side. I like it this way better.

I would like to amplify a couple things Senator Reid talked about. I think it is significant, when you talk about where we are now relative to where we were in TEA-21, the last 6-year reauthorization. Our average is 35.6 percent higher. The average State is higher than it was in TEA-21.

In the comments he made about a computer run, I know this is kind of complicated to explain to people because it is the only way I think you can come up with something that is very fair. Prior to this, in previous years under TEA-21, we had the 1104 table which was a minimum guarantee. That was a percentage that each State had that was a percentage of the total growth. It was purely politically driven.

I don't like the way some of these things come out of the computer. But when this came out, I agreed with Senator Reid, there is not a better way of doing it. I will give an example. I was talking to one of the Senators from Pennsylvania who was complaining about perhaps not getting the share they should have gotten. So I did a comparison.

My State of Oklahoma--I hope no one from Oklahoma is listening right now--is 70,000 square miles. Pennsylvania is 46,000 square miles. My State of Oklahoma has a population of 3.5 million. They have 12.2 million. The historic rate of return since we came in to the first bill, through Senator Moynihan, has been .87 percent. Pennsylvania has been 1.16 percent. This is the key: the total miles. Unfortunately, I don't have this less toll roads, but I will explain the difference.

If you take the total amount of miles in my State of Oklahoma, it is 112,000 miles. The total number of miles in Pennsylvania is 119,500 miles, but that includes toll roads. We all know Pennsylvania has a lot of toll roads. So when you take them out, I am quite sure the number of miles we refer to in this legislation would be more than Pennsylvania. And yet if you look back historically, in 1998, Oklahoma received $351 million; Pennsylvania $1.16 billion. In 1999, Oklahoma received $413 million; $1.3 billion for Pennsylvania. It goes on consistent with that.

What I am saying is, even under the formula we are looking at right now, Pennsylvania is getting back about three times the amount. Again, there are other factors. I am sure we will be talking about those from State to State. But it shows it is very difficult to come up with something that is fair. There is not one State that will not be able to go back to their people and say how well their State is doing under this.

I don't sound like a conservative Republican when I am talking this way, but this is one area where conservatives believe Government has a function, a strong role, and that is to build infrastructure. We have not been doing a good job of it. I know this because I spent 8 years in the other body. During that time, I was on the committee called Public Works and Transportation. It is strictly transportation, not like EPW, which is environment, all the regulatory agencies, and transportation. So it is just about half the jurisdiction. But during that time, we watched what was going on, and I was right on top of it.

When I came over to this body in 1994, I became chairman of the Clean Air Subcommittee. I kind of left the transportation part. When we came back and I became chairman of the Transportation Infrastructure Subcommittee, all of a sudden I realized what had happened in the 4 years I had been detached from transportation.

When you talk about the number of vehicles that are traveling, the number of trucks, the number of congestive stops, where you have to sit and idle your engine--we are handling all of these things in this bill. I think during that 4-year period we did a bad job. We didn't do what we should have done. Quite frankly, in 1998, I wasn't real happy that we weren't really meeting the problem. A computer run is tough. You have to consider that some States are fast growing States, such as Nevada, big States such as California, Florida, Texas, and some of them would be complaining that they are not doing too well. It is because you have to have a ceiling, a growth ceiling. If you have a growth ceiling and they are getting back an inordinate amount of money, it bumps into that ceiling. At the same time, you have donor and donee States. If you take Texas and Pennsylvania, both of which might argue they are not treated fairly, if you make a change in one, it is making an adverse change in the other. I think we have to say we have done a good job when you look at this.

One thing I think is important to talk about is the public views. I think the general feeling is that we spend too much money in Washington, and I think we do. But when it comes to their views on transportation investment, it is totally different. In January, last month of this year, Zogby International conducted interviews of a thousand likely voters chosen at random nationwide. That is a pretty big sampling, as those of us know who read these polls. It is about twice the size of the average poll.

Eighty-seven percent of those interviewed said the Nation's highway and public transit network is very important to the Nation's economy; 83 percent agreed that President Bush and Congress should do more to help create jobs for those Americans who want to work, even though the latest Government statistics suggest that the U.S. economy is rebounding; 69 percent favored boosting Federal spending on transportation projects during 2004, and that is significant--69 percent of the Americans favor boosting the amount of money of Federal spending on transportation projects during 2004 as part of the transportation or jobs creation initiative, as well as part of the transportation needs and infrastructure needs. I think that is very significant. According to the same pollster, that is how nearly 70 percent of American voters responded.

In a survey they conducted a year before, they said they believe America is facing a transportation capacity crisis. That is what I was saying we were observing a year ago--that our Nation's roads, airports, and mass transit systems are struggling to handle a growing population economy. Fifty-six percent overall, and 79 percent of young women with children, said traffic congestion is depriving them of more time with their families or for leisure activities than it did just 5 years ago. That is significant.

These are social problems that exist because we are not doing an adequate job. These answers should not surprise anyone. It says that, since 1982, the U.S. population has grown almost 19 percent, the number of registered motor vehicles has increased by 36 percent, and vehicle miles traveled has ballooned 72 percent. Surprise, over the past 20 years, we have added less than 5 percent to road capacity and even less than that to public transit. So we added even 5 percent less to road capacity in spite of the fact that the population has grown 19 percent and the

motor vehicles have increased by 36 percent.

Just take that as one statement, one statistic, and that justifies everything we are doing in trying to beef this up. It proves that what we are doing now is inadequate, but it is the best we can do under the circumstances.

Forty-eight percent of those surveyed by Zogby described the condition of the roads in their local communities as either fair or poor. That was the assessment of 75 percent of Hispanic Americans.

The survey polled a random sample of a thousand likely voters nationwide--the margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent--and highways and public transit are consistently important to Americans. They said in a commentary accompanying the survey that highway safety and efficient public transit are also high priorities. Overcrowded roads are not only a concern for commuters but also for Americans who are nervous about another terrorist attack.

Other key findings: 80 percent think the Nation's highways and public transit network is extremely important or very important to the U.S. economy. The fact is, I commented in my opening remarks that this is by far the biggest jobs bill that we can be considering at any time. That is what 80 percent of Americans say.

Nearly 8 in 10 also agree that an investment in highways, bridges, and public transit should be considered an important element in homeland security and national defense. We know this administration is very concerned about national security and homeland defense. I am glad they are. We are overdue in addressing these issues. The people agree with that, also.

Nearly 90 percent feel it is important that their representatives in Congress fight to ensure sufficient Federal funding for transportation improvement projects in their local areas. That is interesting because this is at a time when people are complaining about the amount of money we are spending.

Two-thirds of Americans say roads and public transit systems play a highly important role in their everyday lives. We are concerned about congestion. I am in my State of Oklahoma. I am sure it is the same problem in North Carolina and virtually in every State.

One of the foremost authorities in putting together, consolidating the concerns has been the Texas Transport International; that is the Texas Aggies' group that put together something that they conduct annually--not just in Texas but throughout the country--as to what we are going to do about congestion. They said, less than a year ago, that 59 percent of the Nation's roadways today are experiencing significant traffic congestion compared to only 34 percent in 1982.

Fully two-thirds of the major roads in the 75 U.S. urban areas are congested during peak travel periods, compared to only one-third in 1982. That is double. Both figures will increase without additional investment. The average number of hours per day with congestion that might be encountered on urban roads has risen from 4.5 hours in 1982 to about 7 hours in 2001.

The average annual delays per peak road traveled in 75 urban areas is 60 hours. That is significant because, when you have delays, you are also talking about pollution and about leaving cars running and trucks running, polluting the air, using up the fuel. We have an energy crisis in this country to start with.

Traffic congestion is now responsible for 5.7 billion gallons of wasted motor fuel. The total cost of traffic congestion to the U.S. economy and lost productivity and wasted motor fuel in 2001 was almost $69.5 billion, or putting it down so we understand it, that is $528 per person. I think sometimes we throw around figures of billions and trillions and it is difficult to understand, certainly, for people who are not spending this much time studying these things in Washington. That $69 billion equals $528 per person.

Shortly, I am going to talk about some of the other areas of the bill specifically, section by section. At this point, I will yield the floor because I understand the senior Senator from Texas has comments she would like to make.

As we talked about before, there are always problems in formulas. There are so many things to consider, as we outlined, such as fast-growing States, large States, small States. I would have to say to the senior Senator from Texas, we in Oklahoma are kind of in the same situation as Texas. We have always been a donor State. We are just delighted to look down the road and see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that we are getting to the point where we will all have a minimum of 95 percent. I can remember when that number was at 77 percent and then 80 percent and then 90.5 percent and now up to 95 percent.

This is one of the difficulties. The Senator from Texas is from one of the three largest States and it is a fast-growing State. In my opening remarks, I mentioned that to come up with a formula, as the Senator from Nevada has said, it is a very difficult thing, because there are fast-growing States. There has to be a ceiling but there also has to be a floor. There has to be consideration for donee and donor.

I thought it was kind of interesting, during the remarks of the Senator from Texas, that the Senator from Nevada came over and said, I wish we were doing as well as Texas on percentages.

Later on we are going to have full-size charts.

Later on we are hoping we are going to have larger charts to be able to show one for every State, but this one which I will hold up--I hope everyone will be able to see it--if we take under TEA-21 the average in the State of Texas was $2.1 billion. That is the average of each year for a 6-year period. Starting in 2004, they would go up to $2.6 billion; 2005, $2.8 billion; 2006, $2.9 billion; and going on up at the end of 2009, it would be $3.6 billion, almost $3.7 billion, which is a huge increase, of course, over previous years.

I recognize there will be a lot of States that are not going to be happy with their formulas. It is those people who try to find a better formula, after we put all of our resources together and spent a year doing this, who have had a very difficult time coming up with something that is going to be any better.

Quite frankly, I spent some time in Texas. I held a field hearing in Texas. I talked to them and hopefully they are going to be very pleased with the massive increases, the percentage increase. For the State of Texas under this bill over TEA-21, the previous 6-year authorization bill, is 42 percent. Now the average increase is 35.6 percent. So Texas is way above the average increase and way above the average amount of the average States.

I recognize there are problems with any formula, but those are some facts we are dealing with and things we had to consider. It is always difficult when representing 50 States, as we were in the committee. I would like to have done a lot better for my State of Oklahoma. I know Senator Santorum talked to me about some of the problems in his State. When we look at the State of Texas and the State of Pennsylvania, where there is a donee State that is dissatisfied, the only way that can be improved would be to do something to lower the ceiling in the other States. So it is a difficult thing to deal with.

I certainly will yield to the Senator from Texas.

Reclaiming my time, there is a lot of truth to what the Senator says. One thing that needs to be clarified, and we have asked the staff to do it because it has not been done before, is to see--I mean, we are in the same situation. The State of Texas today is getting back 90.5 percent. We are getting back 90.5 percent. It is kind of an interesting study that is being conducted right now to determine how much of the money--when the Senator says Texans pay in so much and get back so much, a lot of the fuel that is being purchased, subject to excise tax, is not purchased by citizens of Texas, particularly talking about a corridor going through. I know when I am down there, I purchase a lot of fuel. That same I-35 goes through my State of Oklahoma. A lot of the NAFTA traffic is traffic that is not Texas traffic, but they are purchasing fuel there. It would be interesting to know whether or not the citizens of my State of Oklahoma or the citizens of State of Texas are actually getting back perhaps more than they are paying in in fuel revenues.

I thank the Senator from Texas.

I do not see others waiting to be heard. As we all know, tonight, in about an hour and 25 minutes from now, we will be having a cloture vote. Is that correct, Madam President?

Between now and then, we will have a chance to hear from a lot of people, and as they come in I would be glad to have them heard on this subject. In the meantime, I will make a statement that I would otherwise be making after the cloture vote. I am hoping the cloture vote will be successful and we can move right on to this very significant vote. In the meantime, I am inclined to want to share a few things that are in this bill, which I would be glad to do at this time, and then yield to any Senator who comes in who may want to be heard.

I ask the Chair to go ahead and recognize the Senator from Massachusetts now, if he wishes to be recognized. Mine is going to be a rather long statement. We will go ahead and move to that when the Senator from Massachusetts is through.

Congratulating the New England Patriots

Will the Senator yield?

Will the Senator yield so I can make a parliamentary inquiry?

Madam President, I am very interested in hearing the remarks of the senior Senator from Massachusetts. However, we are right now debating the cloture motion. While I think it is perfectly appropriate to talk about the game last night, I hate to get into another subject when we only have an hour and 20 minutes to be talking about our cloture motion.

I, first of all, ask the Senator if this is something that could be postponed until after that motion.

Which is on this bill.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the quorum call be vitiated.

Under the rules, it is my wish, as the chairman of the committee, that we get to this very important bill. The Senator from Massachusetts has agreed, if he could be recognized, he would keep it down to 10 minutes. That would be acceptable to me, if it is acceptable?

Madam President, I appreciate the Senator from Massachusetts using the time. He has a concern about the extension of unemployment benefits, and we are all concerned about that. A lot of that would be alleviated with the passage of the transportation bill. This is the largest jobs bill we will be considering this year, or perhaps in a 6-year period. It is very significant.

Madam President, one of the goals for reauthorization of TEA-21 has been to increase the rate of return to donor States. We have talked about that. We have had several bills in the past in which we wanted to achieve that. In this particular one, we achieved it to a smaller degree in TEA-21. But in this reauthorization, we want to further increase the return to donor States without negatively impacting the growth of donee States. That is where we get into the problem with the State of Texas and the State of Pennsylvania. If we do one, we will negatively impact the other. Our goal has been to streamline the project delivery process to create greater flexibility for States to spend their highway safety dollars in the areas of greatest need.

Most Members agree that in Washington we do not have all the answers. The Presiding Officer would admit readily that people in North Carolina know about the needs in North Carolina greater than we do. That is one good thing about this program; we do leave a lot of it to the States. We do more than that in this reauthorization. I have talked to people in a number of States, including people in the State of Texas, who are very pleased with the idea that they are getting more flexibility. This bill recognizes they have a better idea of the needs of their State. I certainly know that to be true in the State of Oklahoma.

Finally, the goals were to focus attention on freight movement. This has not been considered. Freight movement is the responsible party for a lot of the congestion referred to by several speakers so far, causing trucks to idle, cars to idle, time wasted when pollution carries on where we are paying for additional gasoline but nothing is moving.

Although the proposed bill before the Senate addresses each of these areas, it has not covered all the reforms I would like to cover. However, it is a good start. We made a good start. It has been in the spirit of cooperation. Historically, when we reauthorize a highway bill, it is not partisan. As we worked together, Senator Jeffords, Senator Reid, Senator Bond, and myself, in many hours of putting together our best ideas, there were things I would have preferred to have in here that are not here. This is a good start.

The Federal aid highway system is a key component to America's continued economic growth. The free flow and movement of goods, safety for travelers, advancement and use of technology, and security of our borders and freight corridors are essential to our economic stability. Our investment in this critical infrastructure is not only required for people in goods movement but almost the foremost link in creation of jobs and opportunities for all Americans and represents the largest investing in discretionary programs.

I remember seeing that familiar square-shaped sign ``Men Working'' and someone very creatively inserted ``Not''--``Men Not Working.'' It is clear, each day we fail to enact a comprehensive 6-year reauthorization of the highway program, we continue to erode the ability of our economy to grow.

Many colleagues share my strong desire to get this bill passed and sent to the President by February 29. On February 29, the extension we have on TEA-21 expires. No State benefits by

prolonging the process through temporary extensions of the current program. It disrupts planning; it disrupts the ability to plan ahead on the availability of workers to get the very most out of it. It is very important we do that. The proposal before the Senate provides the framework for transportation investments needed to accomplish our shared goal of creating new and better economic opportunities.

The centerpiece of our bill is the new Equity Bonus Program which replaces the Minimum Guarantee Program. The Equity Bonus Program increases the minimum rate of return for donor States while ensuring fair treatment to donee States, about which we have been talking.

All donor States reach 95 percent return on highway trust funds by 2009. That is a huge increase. We remember when it used to be 77 percent and 80 percent. In addition to the fact that we are going to get everyone up to 95 percent return in this bill, all States take home more money than they did under TEA-21. Unlike the current Minimum Guarantee Program, which is in place right now, where the table in section 1104 governed what your State received each year in Federal highway dollars, under the Equity Bonus Program the formulas are the driving force, not the politics.

The 1104 section approach, or minimum guarantee, is an approach that was purely politically driven. A lot of people were outraged about it. But they sat down and said we will put some percentages here until we reach 60 votes and we can pass a bill. But that is not fair. Certainly, we correct that situation in this bill.

We allow the formulas to work. We recognized there would be some inequities if we allowed the formulas to be the sole factor in distributing dollars to the States. Therefore, we subjected States to growth ceilings in each year; that is, there is a ceiling. So we get the fast-growing States that will not have more than they would be entitled to at the expense of those that are currently donee States. This accomplishes the two goals and keeps the costs of the Equity Bonus Program affordable and ensures that donee States are still able to grow.

We also recognized that States with lower tax bases have an added challenge to adequate funding of their transportation system. We define these States as States with low population or low population densities and low income. We guaranteed these States at least their TEA-21 rate of return.

Finally, large donor States do not reach 95 percent until 2009. This is a concern for some of the Senators from Florida, California, and Texas. This is because the growth ceilings prevent them from growing too fast at the expense of large donee States. This means they bump into the ceiling. For instance, if we were to increase the growth ceiling in any year to move the large donor States to 95 percent sooner, the increased costs would be at the expense of the large donee States such as New York and Pennsylvania.

Since releasing this plan on January 21, I have heard from both large donor State members who are concerned their States do not reach 95 percent until 2009 and donee State Senators who believe their States do not grow as much as they would like. Both sides raise valid concerns. But the cold reality is, in order to get the bill through the Senate-- we are talking about S. 1072, on which there will be a cloture vote an hour from now--it has to take care of both donor and donee States.

So there have to be compromises. We have made compromises. As the Senator from Nevada said, there are a lot of things he believed he cannot get for his State that he believed he should have, and the same is true for my State of Oklahoma.

After working on this for over a year, Jim Jeffords, Kit Bond, Harry Reid, and I decided the most fair, reasonable, and logical way to balance donor and donee needs was by creating ceilings and floors. Both benefit but both have to give up some growth in order to help others grow.

In order to get this bill off the floor, we have to have 60 votes, which means a balance between the donor and donee States. This proposal achieves that.

Another new initiative is establishment of a new core funding category for safety. With highway fatalities approaching an unacceptable 43,000 a year, Congress has the responsibility to make the roads safer. That is why we call this SAFETEA. The purpose of the new highway safety improvement program is to increase the visibility and effectiveness in funding for safety projects in such a way as to produce a dramatic reduction of highway fatalities and injury.

SAFETEA also addresses the significant challenges involved in intermodal connectivity by creating a set-aside from the National Highway System Program for the completion of ``last mile'' connections. One of the frustrating aspects of freight congestion is the need to complete the last connection between port terminals and highways or the connection between freight rail and highways. This has never been addressed in the previous authorization bills. This proposal not only identifies a funding source for intermodal connectors but also creates room at the planning table for freight interests and concerns.

Additionally, this bill lowers the threshold level for assistance under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, TIFIA, from $100 million to $50 million, which I think all four Members thought was a dramatic improvement, to make some structural changes to the program designed to make this financial tool more usable to States.

Freight congestion is not the only mobility issue. Personal mobility is also a problem in both urban and rural areas. Reports indicate that on a nationwide scale, road congestion costs the U.S. economy about $67 billion annually, including 3.6 billion hours of delay and 5.7 billion gallons of gasoline that is wasted. Here we are with a fuel crisis, an energy crisis in this country, and we are wasting 5.7 billion gallons of fuel.

The committee bill also proposes to give States and localities increased ``tools'' to deal with this problem, by permitting and encouraging the use of innovative techniques such as ``hot'' lanes for single occupants who pay a toll to ride in high-occupancy lanes as well as variable toll pricing, which uses varying peak-hour pricing to control congestion during regular high-volume periods. We have tried to do this in the past. We are just being more innovative in carrying this further.

SAFETEA establishes the Intermodal Passenger Facilities Program, which provides grants for making necessary connections between various modes of transportation. Current surface transportation programs fail to address the importance of intercity bus services. In my State of Oklahoma, many people are using the intercity bus services to travel between our two largest cities, Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and our rural areas.

In many cases, this type of service is the only link rural communities have to larger urban areas where connections can then be made to both national and international destinations. Specifically, this provision would encourage the development of an integrated system of public transportation facilities through intercity bus facility grants.

I see that the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Jeffords, is in the Chamber. I am sure he has a few remarks to make. If I could finish with this before I get into the section-by-section analysis, would that be acceptable with the Senator.

Thank you. I will go ahead and do that at this time.

During the 107th Congress, we all experienced a cold dose of reality when the revenue aligned budget authority--that is, RABA--was negative for the first time. Hysteria hit. We were all concerned at that time. The principle that dollars into the trust fund should equal dollars out is fiscally sound and responsible and something I strongly support. However, to maintain consistency in the program, we need to even out the swings in revenue projections.

Last year, we learned that unless the mechanism to predict future revenues is more realistic, the potential consequences can be disastrous. Some will argue that we should not allow negative RABAs. I disagree. As I stated earlier, I strongly support the principle of ``dollars in equals dollars out.'' If we continue to rely on the system of revenue projections, we must accept the negatives along with the positives. While the pay-as-you-go system of

funding highways may be cumbersome, it is also an important fiscal principle we should retain.

At the same time, we can and need to make improvements to RABA to make it more reliable in the future. This bill does that by modifying the RABA calculation so that annual funding level adjustments are less dependent on future anticipated receipts and more dependent on the levels of actual receipts to the highway trust fund.

We strengthen stewardship of highway trust fund dollars by requiring project management plans and annual financial plans to be submitted for all Federal aid projects above $1 billion or more and requiring annual financial plans for all projects receiving $100 million or more in Federal aid funding. Both of these items were raised in last year's hearings on reauthorization as areas needing additional oversight. I might add that even the States came in and were supportive of this idea.

As our system ages and becomes functionally obsolete, extensive reconstruction will need to occur. Typically, these projects are very large in scope and I believe require careful oversight to ensure proper management of funds and fewer opportunities for surprises in the construction process. These changes are designed to give us the information needed to accomplish critical oversight.

Colleagues, the bill in front of you represents the culmination of Senate efforts for reauthorizing critical transportation infrastructure needs across America. This bill aims at funding all States equitably and generously, increasing the safety of drivers and pedestrians on our roads, streamlining environmental review processes while protecting critical natural resources, improving program effectiveness and efficiency, and preparing for the transportation needs of the future.

I ask my colleagues to consider the significant level of effort put into the preparation of this bill by the several committees involved, the administration's recommendations, and stakeholder input. I believe this bill does that.

I would like to make one comment. We do have a vote coming up in 50 minutes from now, and we have several people who want to be heard. I would only say we have been talking a lot about formulas. As most of us know--but sometimes it does not come out forcefully--there are other funds that are going to be available. About 7 percent of the amount that would be in formulas would be found in projects. Anyone who wants this bill should consider voting for cloture so we can get on the bill. We would expect them to certainly support this motion if they have an interest in projects for their States.

At this time I will just repeat one thing I said earlier when the Senator, Mr. Jeffords, was not in the Chamber. We have been talking about how Senator Jeffords, Senator Bond, and, of course, Senator Reid and I have been working very closely, together with our staffs, to get to the point where we are now. So I publicly thank the Senator from Vermont for all the hard work he has put into this bill and for the cooperative method of how we have come to some compromises. Perhaps neither one of us is really excited about it, but we know that is the art of compromise.

Will the Senator yield?

I suggest, we have 24 minutes and we have three people to be heard, including the Senator from Connecticut. That is 8 minutes apiece. Does the Senator object to speaking for 8 minutes?

Will the Senator yield? I understand the Senator, in addition to being on the committee I chair, is also on the Finance Committee. Would he care to report on what has just transpired in the last hour or so?

I further ask, since I am chairman of the committee, if the Senator who has the floor now will yield to me for a few comments.

I see Senator Thomas, from a State such as Wyoming, falls into a category we are taking care of in the formulas. That is low- yield or low-population States. They have to be looked after. As he points out, people are driving through, yet they don't have the population base to be supporting large amounts of revenue to pay for the roads.

On the other hand, we see Senators such as the Presiding Officer now, from the State of Texas, one of the fastest growing, largest States. He certainly has problems. So being very careful to try to take care of all these diverse needs in establishing a formula to put together something that would take care of the large States, we put in a ceiling and we put in a floor. We put something in there for donee and donor States. It is a very difficult formula.

I remind my colleagues who might not feel this is a fair approach to it, to remember, to recall when we tried to do this before under TEA- 21, we had a purely political system. Everybody got a percentage of the amount of money that was there and it was all driven by politics. Once they received 60 votes, they didn't care what happened. We are not doing that. We have a formula that takes care of all these needs.

I saw the senior Senator from Pennsylvania coming through just a moment ago and there have been some complaints from that State. I compare that to my State. My State is 20 percent larger than the State of Pennsylvania, yet we have roughly the same number of miles of roads. Yet under this formula, he is receiving some $3 for every $1 we receive. That doesn't look like I do a very good job for my State of Oklahoma. Nevertheless, it is a reality that we have to consider all these things.

If you look at some of the compromises we have made, we had four principals who spent more time than anyone else drafting this bill. They were, of course, myself as chairman, Senator Jeffords as the ranking member, Senator Reid as the ranking member on the subcommittee, and Senator Bond on the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee, subcommittee chairman.

I will conclude by urging my colleagues not to waste any more time. We need to get to this. We should have done this back on September 30. I urge colleagues that we invoke cloture and get right to the bill.

Mr. President, first of all, I thank all the main principals involved: Senators Jeffords, Reid, Bond, and the entire committee. I think it was a very good vote. I think we are going to be able to move on to the biggest jobs bill probably in the last 10 years. I thank my colleagues for their strong support.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 1072, the highway bill, at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, February 3.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet in open Executive Session during the session on Monday, February 2, 2004; to reconsider, pursuant to a unanimous consent agreement on October 1, 2003 the Chairman's Mark entitled, National Employee Savings and Trust Equity Guarantee Act. The Committee will also consider a Chairman's Mark entitled, Extension of Highway Trust Fund Provisions; and, S. 882, the Tax Administration Good Government Act of 2004.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to grant floor privileges to the following fellows for the duration of floor consideration of the bill:

Gregory Murrill, Heideh Shahmoradi, Laura Berry, Mitch Surrett, John Stoody, Wendy Parker, and William Boyd.