Senate approves $122 billion transportation, housing spending bill

The Senate Thursday approved the $122 billion, fiscal 2010 Transportation-Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill, 73-25, after defeating four Republican proposals to scale back funding in the bill and in the economic stimulus package.

One Republican proposal, by Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, would have limited funding in the bill to John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport in Pennsylvania to just air traffic control operations. The Senate defeated the amendment, 53-43.

"This amendment I hope is a turning point for the Senate where we identify wasteful spending and begin to make some progress toward cutting those things that we don't have to do at the federal level," DeMint said, adding that his proposal would not affect any safety or defense-related funding for the airport, which is named after House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa.

DeMint argued that the airport has received about $200 million in federal funds over the last 20 years with an average of about 20 passengers a day using it.

"This airport has received an inordinate amount of money. It has equipment it doesn't even use; millions for radar equipment that's not even staffed," DeMint said.

Sen. Robert Casey Jr., D-Pa., who opposed the amendment, argued it sets a bad precedent by singling out one airport.

"The unemployment rate in Cambria County is almost 9.5 percent and we are going to sit here in Washington and vote on something that will shut down an airport," Casey said. "It is bad policy. We should allow the decision to be made by the federal authority that should be making the decision, which is the Federal Aviation Administration."

The Senate also defeated an amendment, 60-37, from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to strike three earmarks for brownfields economic development projects, including $600,000 for a project in Cincinnati requested by Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio; $500,000 for a project in Waterbury, Conn., sought by Sens. Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman, both Connecticut Democrats; and $200,000 for a project in Pittsburgh requested by Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.

A proposal from Sen. David Vitter, R-La., was defeated 62-34. His amendment would have prohibited the use of funds in the bill for households that include convicted drug dealers or domestic violence offenders or members of violent gangs that occupy rebuilt public housing in New Orleans.

Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., citing concern about the budget deficit, sought to recommit the bill to the Appropriations Committee so the panel can rescind unspent stimulus funding that would duplicate spending in the Transportation-HUD bill, except for accounts that relate to highway spending. The proposal would have saved about $11 billion, Kyl said. The Senate defeated his motion, 64-34.

Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., who opposed the Kyl motion, argued that its approval would only delay passage of important funding in the bill.

An amendment from Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., was adopted by unanimous consent that would allow communities that have received fiscal 2008 Community Development Block Grant funds to recover from disasters to use those funds as matching dollars for other federal aid.

Meanwhile, the Senate Thursday began debating the $32.1 billion, fiscal 2010 Interior-Environment spending bill and voted 85-11 in favor of an amendment offered by Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., banning the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now from receiving any of the bill's funds.

More votes on amendments to the spending bill are expected Tuesday.

The amendment comes after ACORN was targeted in a sting by conservative activists who posed as a pimp and a prostitute and caught ACORN workers on video advising them how to get around tax and housing laws. Since the videos emerged, ACORN has launched an internal investigation.

The Senate Monday approved an amendment from Johanns to bar ACORN from receiving funds in the Transportation-HUD bill.

ACORN has said that it has begun an internal investigation into the matter, but that didn't stop the House Thursday from approving 345-75 a motion to recommit -- in connection with a student lending bill -- that called for stopping all federal funds for ACORN.

The language in the motion is similar to legislation introduced by House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Republicans are looking to put a one-year kibosh on the Environmental Protection Agency regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other nonmobile sources of pollution. Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Lisa Murkowski and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., plan to file an amendment that they say does not run counter to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling -- Massachusetts v. EPA -- which said the agency must look into whether to regulate carbon dioxide from vehicles and other mobile sources.

But it would effectively neuter for a year a pending EPA "endangerment finding" citing global warming as a public health risk that must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. EPA proposed that finding in April and there is no timeline yet for it to be finalized, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said Wednesday at a forum hosted by The Atlantic.

Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is working on a plan to quicken EPA's pace for allowing 15 percent ethanol blends in gasoline. "We're working on the exact way in which to create the leverage for them to do that," Nelson said. The amendment would be particularly popular among Midwesterners but there will be grumbling particularly in states where corn-based ethanol is not grown and has to be transported.

Darren Goode contributed to this report.