(The following story by Tom Hester Jr. appeared on The Times website on April 26.)
TRENTON, N.J. — Billions of dollars are at stake for New Jersey as the U.S. Senate and House work to reconcile different highway and transit bills the president has threatened to veto. The state’s transportation chief is concerned the outcome won’t be favorable to New Jersey.
“Right now, I’m not as optimistic as I once was,” state Transportation Commissioner Jack Lettiere said recently.
Congress has spent much of this year wrangling over reauthorizing a transportation funding bill that between 1998 and 2003 provided $4.35 billion to New Jersey and $1.62 billion for New Jersey mass transit.
In February, the Senate approved a $318 billion bill that would include $6 billion for New Jersey and $2.72 billion for state mass transit until the 2009 fiscal year.
But the House recently approved a $275 billion package that would include $4.78 billion for New Jersey and about $2.1 billion for the state’s mass transit.
President Bush has threatened to veto each measure. His $256 billion spending plan calls for giving a bit less to the state than the House bill. According to Lettiere, the president’s proposal “basically would have not given us any increase at all over the six-year period.”
New Jersey uses federal money to help pay for improvement projects. For instance, its proposed $2.6 billion capital improvement budget for the next fiscal year proposes using $721 million in federal highway money and $518 million in federal mass transit money.
The Senate bill would provide New Jersey with a 39.5 percent increase in highway funding and a 68 percent increase in mass transit money. Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., said the bill would give New Jersey a 95-cent return on each federal dollar it paid into the federal highway trust fund by fiscal year 2009, an increase from the 90.5 cents it now gets back.
“It would have been a very healthy increase for us,” Lettiere told the state Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee during a recent hearing.– — —
The House bill, which originally called for $375 billion, doesn’t include the Senate’s 95-cent return but includes a provision that could reopen the bill in two years if that guarantee isn’t in place.
The House measure included about 3,000 specific projects, including:
— $9.85 million for Trenton Train Station reconstruction, which is expected to begin this summer with utility relocation. The $45 million project has already received about $15 million in federal money.
— $6.85 million for road improvements in Burlington County.
— $3.1 million for NJ Transit buses for Burlington County.
— $1.5 million for Interstate 195 in Upper Freehold.
— $1.5 million for rebuilding bridges along East State Street, Chestnut Avenue and Monmouth Street in Trenton that cross over the Northeast Corridor rail line.
The largest New Jersey appropriation would be $45 million to eliminate at-grade interchanges along the Garden State Parkway in Cape May County.
But Lettiere wasn’t as effusive about the House bill’s bottom line.
“Quite frankly, it barely covers the cost of inflation,” he said.
Every member of the New Jersey House delegation voted for the bill, except for Rep. Jim Saxton, R-Mount Holly, who didn’t vote.
Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-Paterson, a member of the House Subcommittee on Highways, Transit and Pipelines, said in a prepared statement the bill is a “good deal” for New Jersey, “but we can and must try to do much better.”
“Compared with the $375 billion transportation bill that would meet the needs of our congested nation, this bill includes important policy provisions that are severely underfunded,” Pascrell said.
With the House and Senate passing different bills, the legislation will be decided by a conference committee.– — —
Business and construction groups have vowed to lobby for a final package that leans more toward the Senate bill.
“The Senate-passed bill should be considered the six-year investment floor by the conferees,” said Pete Ruane, president and CEO of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association.
Anne Canby of the Surface Transportation Policy Project said the conference committee “is where the real challenge of achieving what the public wants and expects will be determined.”
“We call upon congressional leaders to chart a course that reflects the public’s desire for more transportation options and more sensitive investments that enhance their communities, the environment and quality of life,” Canby said.
The White House and its allies claim the bill spends too much money during tough economic times and is wasteful.
“Lawmakers have been blinded by their greed to bring home the bacon in an election year and have forgotten that our nation has a fiscal crisis,” said Keith Ashdown, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.
With Bush’s veto threat still looming, Lettiere praised the state’s congressional delegation for its lobbying efforts but said, “I was much more confident of a higher level maybe about three or four months ago, but now things are getting, if I can say it this way, a little sticky in Washington as they get into conference.”
The effect on New Jersey remains uncertain, but Lettiere said the state developed its 2005 fiscal year spending plan with federal funding trouble in mind.
“We have put in a very, very modest increase in federal funds, and we do not believe we’ll have to cut it,” Lettiere said.– — —
For this fiscal year, the state included in its budget $695 million in federal highway money and $515 million in federal mass transit money.
The federal transportation dispute has been discussed by state legislators during recent Assembly and Senate budget hearings amid concern about the state’s own transportation financing, with the Transportation Trust Fund consumed by debt and Gov. James E. McGreevey readying to borrow $900 million for the 2006 fiscal year.
“Hopefully we will fare well, although I think many of us have been frustrated with the amount of federal dollars that keep getting cut from the budgets back to the states,” said Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Wood-Ridge.
“We do rely heavily on the federal dollars, and in the last few years we’ve not been receiving, I believe, our fair share here in New Jersey, one of the most congested states.”