House OKs Sun Road funding

By JIM MANN

The Daily Inter Lake

Yet another act of Congress is aiming to restore $50 million in funding for Glacier National Park's Going-to-the-Sun Road.

With Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., prodding his colleagues along, the House of Representatives approved a "corrections bill" late Wednesday that included the funding.

The money was included as part of a long-term highways bill last year, but the Federal Highway Administration would not disburse the money because of the way the legislation was worded. That position infuriated Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., whose staff developed the legislation in consultation with the Federal Highway Administration.

For the past few months, Montana's congressional delegation has been looking for ways to restore the funding.

"We were able to put the Going-to-the-Sun Road fix into that bill and it went through last night on a unanimous voice vote," Rehberg said in an interview Thursday. "What we understand is the Senate is going through similar technical corrections."

Baucus recently attempted to restore the funding by including it in a bill that provided supplemental funds for the military spending in Afghanistan and hurricane recovery. The Senate approved the bill, but the Sun Road funding and other added expenses were eliminated in conference committee.

House members, in particular, raised concerns that the added expenses defied a direct veto warning from President Bush.

Rehberg said he worked with Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, to find the appropriate "legislative vehicle" for restoring the funding. And there was the challenge of convincing his colleagues that it is not "new" spending, because it was essentially authorized last year by the House, Senate and White House in the sum of the highway spending bill.

The manner in which the money will be distributed to Glacier National Park has been amended, however. Instead of dividing $50 million over five years, it will be issued over three years, Rehberg said.

The appropriation was considered by park officials to be a major down payment on a long-planned reconstruction of the alpine stretch of Sun Road that gets underway next year. It will also go toward offsetting impacts of construction through measures such as an expanded park transit program.