Jim Inhofe: “that was a great statement by the Senator from Mississippi. I appreciate it very much. It is a recognition that a lot of…”

“that was a great statement by the Senator from Mississippi. I appreciate it very much. It is a recognition that a lot of people will think all of a sudden we came up, last week, with a bill and a formula. They don't realize we have spent a year--a year of our lives--working on a formula, looking into the same things the Senator is talking about. I am from a donor State. We have been a donor State as long as I have been up here. The Senator talked about working on TEA-21. You also worked on ISTEA in the beginning because I was there with you. Those formulas were not as good because they were based on minimum guarantees. A minimum guarantee is you figure, how do I get 60 votes, and then we don't care what happens to the rest of you. We did not do that. We considered the donee States, donor States, the fast-growing States, because there is a ceiling in there for them, and then there is a floor for some of the States that have either a low population or are low-yield States. All these things were taken into consideration. So anything that is as complicated and long as this is, you can pick it apart. But I can tell you right now, we spent a lot of time on it. There are people who are interested in the transit part of it. There are some, such as the Senator from Ohio, who have been very much concerned about and made great contributions to safety. Some of them are concerned about freight and the obstacles that are out there. But we have it all in this one.…”