Lawmakers Vie for Slices of Multiyear Highway Bill

img src="/sites/default/files/images/articles/printeditiontag_new.gif" width=120 align=right>WASHINGTON — After three days of hearings last week, a House subcommittee is expected to make recommendations in May for which highway and bridge projects Congress should fund in the next six-year highway bill.

About 70 lawmakers appeared before the Highways and Mass Transit Subcommittee to make the case for projects they favored. The panel matched the list of proposed projects and their costs to potential funding. But the funding outlook was clouded by the unknown costs of the war and the projected overall budget deficit, said Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.), a member of the subcommittee, on April 1.

“We’ve got a number of [highway and bridge] requests, 19 in California, 22 in Illinois, and we’re getting that type of list from every member,” Duncan said. “I would like to do all these things, but I sure don’t know how we can do that for everyone.”