By a 61-37 vote, the Senate today passed its $838 billion economic stimulus bill after adopting the compromise amendment offered by Sens. Susan Collins, (R-Maine) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb). Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania joined Collins as the only Republicans to vote for the bill. The bill will now go to a conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate versions. While the goal of the Democratic leadership is to have a final bill by the end of this week, the significant differences in the two measures will make that timeline difficult to meet.
While there were numerous amendments in the Senate related to increasing highway, bridge, transit and other transportation funding, in the end, the amounts for these programs were left unchanged from the figures included by the Appropriations Committee. A comparison of the House and Senate passed versions of the bill is as follows:
Senate
- Federal-aid Highway聽$27 B
- Discretionary Grants $5.5 B
- Transit Formula Grants $8.4 B
- TRANSIT New Starts 0
- Airport Improvement $1.1 B
- Federal-aid Highway $30 B
- Discretionary Grants 0
- Transit Formula Grants $9.5 B
- TRANSIT New Starts $2.5 B
- Airport Improvement $ 3 B