Harry Reid: “there are going to be high priority projects in the transportation bill that passes the Congress this year. As long as…”

“there are going to be high priority projects in the transportation bill that passes the Congress this year. As long as there has been a U.S. House of Representatives, there have always been demonstration projects. The House is showing no signs of giving them up this year. There is no chance that the House will pass a transportation bill without earmarks for individual Members' projects. Given that knowledge, do we, as the Members of the Senate, really want to unilaterally disarm? If there are going to be demonstration projects, are we merely going to defer to the House? Rather than slipping projects into the final bill during the conference, wouldn't it be better to have an open discussion of the relative merits of these projects in committee than on the floor? At least give the House credit for having a process. The House committee of jurisdiction required that a 14-point check list be filled out for each demonstration project this year. Only a very few projects from that list will be selected for funding. If the original ISTEA legislation is an indication, well under 10 percent of the final dollar amount will be earmarked for demonstration projects. The original ISTEA bill provided $6.5 billion for demonstration projects out of a total authorization of $155 billion. I dispute the Senator's notion that all demonstration projects are merely glorified pork.”