Senate ready to OK transportation bill

WASHINGTON -- In a rare display of deal-making between Republicans and Democrats in a partisan election year, the Senate was poised to pass an overhaul of highway and transit programs that would give states more flexibility in how they spend federal money and would step up the pace of road construction by shortening environmental reviews.

Even the measure's sponsors -- California Democrat Barbara Boxer and Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe -- come from opposite political poles. A vote on the bill is set for today .

"We are hopeful this will become a template for all of us in the Senate and the House to find the sweet spot where we can work together," Boxer said Tuesday during floor debate on the measure. She said the Senate's bipartisan success should be a lesson for House Republican leaders, whose efforts to pass their own bill without concessions to Democrats have fallen apart.

The Senate marched through more than a dozen amendments, approving proposals to deny federal aid to privatized highways and to loosen safety regulation of agricultural trucks. Some energy-related proposals were batted aside.

The bill would spend $109 billion over less than two years. That is far below the level of spending that two congressional commissions have said will be needed if the United States is to maintain its aging roads and bridges and bus and train systems and expand the national transportation network to meet population growth between now and 2050. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has described the nation's roads as "one big pothole."

The bill also designates a proposed Interstate 11 connecting Las Vegas to Phoenix as a federal corridor eligible for funding. Local transportation officials for years have lobbied the Nevada delegation to approve I-11, which they see as a critical commercial route . The cities are two of the largest and closest metropolitan areas without a direct interstate link.

The Senate's move toward approving the transportation bill means federal funding could be used to build the highway and have it designated as an interstate.

Nevada Department of Transportation Director Susan Martinovich said federal aid could come through a congressional designation or an administrative designation. She and her transportation counterparts throughout the state called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to push for the congressional designation.

"A congressional designation has less strings attached," Martinovich said. "If you have an administrative designation, the road has to be up to interstate standards, and that can take 25 years with all the access points and construction. This (the congressional designation) puts us in a good place without strings."

The difference is similar to the construction of Interstate 215. The road was paid for by Clark County, allowing the Public Works Department to construct a temporary beltway. The two-lane highway was built quickly and served its purpose until enough money was available to build out the existing freeway system with interchanges.

Had Clark County relied on federal funding, it would have had to undergo more environmental studies, and the road would have had to be built as a freeway, delaying the opening by years.

Boulder City Mayor Roger Tobler has supported the construction of Interstate 11 because it would alleviate the traffic congestion that has dogged his town since the 2010 opening of the Hoover Dam bypass bridge.

The interstate would follow the same footprint as the oft-discussed Boulder City bypass, a 12-mile alignment that dips into to the vast empty desert south of Boulder City.

On Tuesday, senators also accepted a compromise amendment by Reid and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that tempers proposed National Park Service noise regulations over the Grand Canyon. It will allow Las Vegas-based air tour operators to continue flying tourists over the landmark while giving the park service leeway to develop new noise rules.

The bill would increase the flow of highway aid to states by adjusting current spending levels to take into account inflation over the past several years.

States would have greater discretion over how to spend the money, but the bill also would create a new set of performance and project eligibility requirements aimed at preventing waste and making sure national goals are met.

Las Vegas Review-Journal Adrienne Packer and Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault contributed to this report.