James M. Jeffords: “I wish to make some brief remarks about the extension of the Transportation Equity Act, often referred to as TEA-21.…”

“I wish to make some brief remarks about the extension of the Transportation Equity Act, often referred to as TEA-21. Chairman Inhofe and I, along with subcommittee Chairman Bond and ranking member Harry Reid, have been working together on drafting a comprehensive, bipartisan 6-year transportation reauthorization bill. Unfortunately, that reauthorization effort will not be completed before TEA-21 expires on September 30. Thus, as with the previous reauthorization of ISTEA by TEA-21, we will need to do a short extension of TEA-21. In the interest of time, and to avoid any concerns about potential disruptions, we have used major portions of the same short-extension language used for ISTEA in 1997 for this extension. It is important that I clarify some aspects of this short extension with the chairman of the committee, Senator Inhofe. The purpose of this short extension is to continue the Federal surface transportation programs and transportation investment patterns. For that reason, we have provided considerable short-term spending flexibility to the States.”