Highway funding compromise will prevent Illinois from losing $119 million

Thursday, May 27, 2010 By: Doug Wilson

Congressional negotiators have come up with a highway funding compromise that will keep Illinois from losing $119 million.

A joint committee has agreed to a hold-harmless provision for the federal highway formula until a new transportation plan is approved.

U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., had favored a plan to strip funding through the National Corridors Funds and the Projects of National and Regional Significance.

Oberstar's plan would have reduced funding for 13 states and the District of Columbia by $515 million this year. In some cases, funds would have been lost for projects that are under construction.

Thursday's compromise will leave funding levels as they are until a new federal highway bill is approved.

"The compromise agreed to today is a win for all involved -- Illinois and the other affected states will not have money taken out of their highway funding allocations, construction projects currently under way will not be halted and hundreds of construction and other highway-related jobs will be saved," U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in a news release.

Twice in recent months, Durbin helped defeat the funding change. He noted that Illinois is a donor state, which gets back only 93 cents for every dollar it sends to Washington in the form of fuel taxes. The funding cut would have reduced that even further.