Baucus lauds highway bill

The Daily Inter Lake

After bringing home the bacon, U.S. Sen. Max Baucus handed it out Wednesday to a group of local dignitaries.

Baucus, the senior Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, was a key player in crafting the $286 billion federal highway bill that President Bush signed into law on Wednesday.

Rather than attend the bill-signing, though, Baucus was in Kalispell, handing out mock checks of $30 million for the U.S. 93 bypass around Kalispell and $50 million for Going-to-the-Sun Road.

The money is a small portion of the $2.3 billion that Baucus secured for Montana in the 5-year bill, including $216 million in project-specific funding.

"This is awesome. It's an 80 million dollar day for the Flathead Valley," said Kalispell Mayor Pam Kennedy, one of about 30 people who attended the ceremony.

Baucus said he was thrilled to help pay for these projects.

"This is personally very satisfying to me," he said. "Every once in a while, something comes along that's really big, and this is one. It's significant, it's real."

Baucus said the $2.3 billion - a 44 percent increase over the previous highway bill - would support more than 18,000 jobs.

Moreover, he said the $216 million in project-specific "earmarks" was more than double what any other state received, on a per-capita basis, with the exception of Alaska.

(Taxpayers for Common Sense had slightly different numbers. It calculated that Montana received more than $398 million in earmarks for 40 project, or $441 per person. The organization said that was third in the nation, behind Vermont and Alaska.)

In addition to the bypass and Sun Road, Baucus also secured $25 million for the reconstruction of the Two Medicine bridge near East Glacier; $8 million for the St. Mary's Diversion irrigation project near Browning; $8 million for widening U.S. 93 south of Ronan; $6 million for improving the Swamp Creek section of U.S. 2 between Kalispell and Libby; and $3 million for bike trails in Whitefish, as well as tens of millions more for other projects around the state.

Flathead County Commissioner Joe Brenneman, a fellow Democrat, praised Baucus for his efforts, saying Sun Road and the Kalispell bypass were critical to the valley's economic health.

However, he couldn't resist the opportunity to hit the senator up for "another $200 million" to help pay for paving the county roads.

Baucus took the request in good humor.

"You're a little late, Joe," he said. "You should have asked a few months ago."