Grass-Roots Efforts to Give Back Highway Money Stall

ome grass-roots efforts to give back money slated for highway projects to help with Gulf Coast reconstruction in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have run into resistance, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Movements began in Montana and Alaska to return some of the new federal highway law’s $286 billion in funding, including a $4 million parking garage in Bozeman, Mont., and a $223 million bridge in Alaska to an island with barely 50 people, the paper said.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said all $25 billion in special projects from the transportation bill could be deferred, and House Republicans and some Democrats agreed, the Times reported.

And Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that steered much of the law through to passage, told a reporter from the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, that returning federal money was " the dumbest thing I've ever heard," the Times reported.

In the immediate wake of Katrina, some federal lawmakers proposed delaying some federal highway projects to free up spending for Gulf Coast reconstruction.

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