Federal transportation construction observers await appointment of House members, as early as this week, to a conference committee aimed at finalizing a surface transportation reauthorization plan. Breaking a six-week deadlock, the Senate leadership on May 20 appointed a 21-member conference committee, chaired by James Inhofe (R-OK). The conference will seek a compromise package based on the Senate's $318 billion and House's $283 billion plans to fund the federal transportation program over the fiscal years 2004-2009.

Looming over the conference are two issues: President Bush's threat of a veto on any package exceeding the administration's $256 billion reauthorization plan; and, the June 30 expiration of a temporary funding measure sustaining federal transportation construction. That measure was the third of its kind to carry the program since the (1998-2003) Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century's Sept. 30 sunset.