David Obey: “Mr. Speaker, this motion to instruct the conferees on the highway bill now pending somewhere in this Capitol is an…”

“Mr. Speaker, this motion to instruct the conferees on the highway bill now pending somewhere in this Capitol is an attempt to put some limits on the pork barrel spending in BESTEA by placing a ceiling on the total number of highway demonstration projects that can be included in the conference report. It instructs the House conferees to make a great sacrifice and to limit the number of highway demonstration projects to the total number of highway demonstration projects that have been approved in all of the previous four years combined since the establishment of the Highway Trust Fund. Mr. Speaker, the last time I checked, there were over 1,500 highway demonstration projects earmarked in the House version of BESTEA at a cost of about $9 billion, and the number is growing. Apparently, the conferees intend to keep all of the House demonstration projects and add an undetermined number of Senate projects into the total pot of $9 billion for highway demonstration projects. At 1,500 projects, that is nearly three times the number of projects included in the last surface transportation bill, and 10 times the number of projects in the 1987 reauthorization bill that President Reagan vetoed for going too far.”