Tucked away in the nooks and crannies of the fiscal 2000 supplemental/fiscal 2001 military construction bill passed last week-amid money for military housing, peacekeeping, anti-narcotics operations and disaster relief-is funding for small projects to benefit individual communities around the country.
Among recipients of the supplemental FY2000 funding are a vast array of highway, bridge and transit projects, among them the Witt-Penn Bridge in New Jersey, the U.S. 82 Mississippi River Bridge in Mississippi, the Paso Del Norte International Bridge in Texas, the Metro-North Danbury to Norwalk commuter re-electrification project, Halls Mill Road in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and the Second Avenue Subway in New York City.
At a cost of $24.9 million, the bill-which President Clinton has not yet signed-directs the Treasury Department to build a firearms training facility for U.S. Customs Service agents in Harpers Ferry, W.Va.
Also headed to West Virginia is $9.8 million in emergency funds-which under budget law do not have to be paid for with offsetting cuts-to hire staff and "provide relative support expenses" for the state's surface mining regulatory program.
Several communities will benefit from the $27.5 million provided for supplemental Community Development Block Grants to fund targeted economic development initiatives. Among them: the Wisconsin communities of Park Falls, Washburn and Hatley; Hamlet, N.C.; and Youngstown, Ohio.
The Environmental Protection Agency's state and tribal assistance grants program is another FY2000 budget item augmented in the conference report, to help communities build and upgrade their water and sewerage treatment plants-including the Louisville, Ky., metropolitan sewer district.
Also to receive extra money in the current fiscal year-$2.4 million-are several upstate New York localities for work on the Buffalo Creek and other New York watersheds, as well as aquifer protection work in Cortland County, and several Pennsylvania counties located in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Amended to the conference report is language to authorize and fund the Lewis and Clark rural water system to supply water to parts of South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota.
Meanwhile, the White House Wednesday expressed optimism that it could find a way to satisfy Clinton's concerns about a rider on the FY2001 Military Construction spending bill-added at the last minute-that would block EPA from implementing waterway cleanup rules. The provision could complicate Clinton's plans to sign the bill.
"We are exploring administrative options" to address the environmental rider, White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said. "I think we are going to be able to work our way through this."
Keith Koffler contributed to this story.
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