Contact: Rob Ostrander 202.224.7627 Shana Stribling 202.224.0309
Wednesday, May 19, 2004

WASHINGTON – After months of stonewalling progress on the transportation bill, Minority Leader Tom Daschle, under intense pressure from pro-highway bill forces, today agreed to let the bill move forward and appoint conferees to negotiate a final bill.

"Democrats finally realized they could no longer justify blocking a bill that creates jobs and saves lives," said Senator Kit Bond. "While this is good news for those of us who have wanted to work on this bill for months while others sought to delay progress, the fact is we are paying a high-price for this delay with a significant portion of this year's construction season already lost.

"The time has come to pass a transportation bill. Now, we need to go to conference as soon as possible. We can no longer let jobs and safety take a back seat to election year politics. Too much is at stake."

Last month, in an effort to highlight Democratic efforts to block progress on the bill, Bond put a hold on legislation to extend current highway and transit programs and blasted Senate Democrats for delaying action on the transportation bill by blocking the naming of Senate conferees.

As recently as Friday, a broad statewide coalition of Missouri labor groups, business groups, civic leaders, elected officials and construction organizations joined with Bond in sending a letter to Senate leaders urging an end to the partisan politics delaying action on the highway bill.

The groups signing the letter ranged from the Greater Kansas City Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO to the Mayors of Kansas City, St. Louis and Columbia, to the Missouri Farm Bureau and the St. Louis Regional Business Council.

Under the $318 billion Senate bill, Missouri would receive approximately $1.4 billion in new transportation dollars to improve Missouri roads and help create an estimated 69,000 jobs for the state.