Pete Domenici: “the rest of this bill has to do with another thing. That is why I said--and the distinguished chairman is playing…”

“the rest of this bill has to do with another thing. That is why I said--and the distinguished chairman is playing solidly--there is a portion of the highway bill under ISTEA, a provision called 90 Percent of Payments. Everybody that had anything to do with this bill, dig it up, go look at what everyone thought would happen to that. Nobody thought there would be very much money under this program. In fact, there are some throw sheets showing it was a very small amount of money in there. But guess what happened? We transferred the 2-cents gasoline tax that we never expected to, and that fund, never expecting that money, is now bloated, and as a result it is giving States additional money. So our friend from Texas said, let's be fair. Let's be fair, and make sure that States like New Mexico--and, incidentally, 27 others--there are 27 winners. If you want to pay winners and losers, there are 27 winners under Stevens. I hope you don't vote for it just because it is a winner. But that happens around here every now and then, and 27 is more than one-half of 50. So I would assume, if you want to vote what is best for your State, vote for 1997. In addition, the committee has included $475 million for 31 States to bring their 1997 limitation to 1996 levels.”