Congress Wraps Spending Bill, Leaves Fate of OMC Hanging

Congress agreed to a $500 billion budget package Thursday that includes Department of Transportation and highway funding for fiscal 1999, but left at least one key trucking issue unresolved: Will the Office of Motor Carriers get a new home?

Rep. Frank Wolf apparently would not relent in his fight to transfer the Office of Motor Carriers from the Federal Highway Administration to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. His proposal is not related to the reorganization of OMC and its field offices in Federal Highway Administrator Kenneth Wykle's plan for FHWA.

Mr. Wolf (R-Va.), who chairs the subcommittee that handles transportation appropriations, insists that OMC would work better under NHTSA. He has kept a pitched battle going with Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) and others to prevent anyone from taking the OMC transfer out of the omnibus spending bill, personally lobbying House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) for support.

Mr. Shuster is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which some say usurped at least part of the traditional appropriating power for the federal aid to highways when it drew up the huge TEA 21, the Transportation Efficiency Act for the 21st Century.

The OMC transfer is "one of the very few issues" that had been not settled at the last moment, despite achievement of a budget agreement, said Jim Wittinghill, ATA senior vice president for government affairs.

"Frank Wolf has made the transfer of this small office a major issue," he said.

According to Mr. Wittinghill, Sen. Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he would support ATA in its opposition to the transfer of the trucking agency.