Richard Shelby: “Mr. President, after being delayed by the objection to the Transit Equity Provision, I am pleased that the Senate will…”

“Mr. President, after being delayed by the objection to the Transit Equity Provision, I am pleased that the Senate will finally have the opportunity to consider the fiscal year 2000 transportation appropriations bill. Although the subcommittee's funding allocation is tight, I believe we are presenting the Senate with a balanced approach to meeting our Nation's transportation needs by providing adequate funding for all modes of transportation. At the same time, the senior Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Lautenberg, and I have gone to great lengths to craft a bill that I believe accommodates the requests of Members and funds their priorities. The current fiscal constraints were especially felt in the transit account, where demand for mass transit systems is growing in every State. But funding is fixed by the TEA 21 firewall. My proposal for managing an account in which Members' requests were more than 20 times the available funds was the Transit Equity Provision. This measure, which I included in the original subcommittee mark of the bill, would have limited the amount of transit capital funds any single State could receive in fiscal year 2000 to no more than 12 rac{1}{2} ext{ percent of the total.}”