Environmental speed bumps don't slow highway bill

Abstract

As C&EN went to press last week, President Bill Clinton had said he sign a $216 billion, six-year national highway spending bill—the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century. Although the bill's central purpose is to fund highway and mass-transit projects, it also became a vehicle for amendments that serve other—frequently unrelated—purposes, including three controversial environmental amendments that surfaced at the last minute during the final House-Senate conference on the bill. In a terse letter to the conferees, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol M. Browner wrote that this 11thhour approach would not lend itself to the careful consideration of important health and environmental issues that the deserves. She also warned that, in some cases, public health may be in immediate jeopardy. Whether or not owing to Browner's plea, the conferees did block the most notable of the three amendments. That one have delayed—pending the results of a National Resear...