DeKalb Chronicle
July 16, 2005
[See bold-faced section for Prairie Parkway funding]
By Chris Rickert - City Editor
SANDWICH - House Speaker Dennis Hastert said Friday that it was his intent to restore about $11 million for a pair of DeKalb road projects to a long-delayed federal transportation bill expected to be finalized this month.
That would bring funding for a project to rebuild and expand South Annie Glidden Road to $8 million, while about $14 million would be set aside to build roads on land owned by Northern Illinois University near the Convocation Center. Those amounts had been included in a version of the bill going back to last year.
In March, Hastert was in DeKalb to announce that each project was to get about half as much, but added that the amounts could increase.
Speaking to reporters before his annual fund-raiser at the Sandwich Fairgrounds Friday evening, Hastert, R-Yorkville, also said there would be money in the approximately $286 billion bill for the Prairie Parkway, a proposed expressway that would connect interstates 88 and 80.
The Illinois Department of Transportation is in the process of determining where that road should go, and the western-most route being considered would run through the eastern edge of DeKalb County.
Hastert declined to take any position on which route was most appropriate, saying that was up to state officials.
Hastert was joined by former Ohio congressman and recently named U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, who talked up the need to pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement as one way reduce trade barriers and open markets for farmers' products.
"Our goal is very simple and it's very noble," Portman said, "that we want to knock down barriers to trade. ... If you knock down barriers to trade, everyone benefits."
He acknowledged that he gets questions from foreign leaders about U.S. crop subsidies being among those barriers, but said U.S. subsidies are a third as much as some European subsidies and similarly far below those of other countries, including Japan.
President Bush's goal, he said, continues to be to get rid of all such subsidies.
On other issues:
Hastert praised Illinois Congressman Ray LaHood and State Sen. Steve Rauschenberger as well-qualified candidates for governor, although he said he wasn't making any endorsements yet.
"It's always nice to see a smaller field so people can make a decision as to who to focus on," he said about the stable of possible GOP contenders for Gov. Rod Blagojevich's job next year.
Hastert also said that because of continuing drought conditions in northern Illinois, "we're in really big trouble in some of these corn areas.
"My corn field kind of looks like a pineapple field," he said.
If drought conditions continue, he said federal drought-relief funding for stricken farmers could be on the way.
"A lot of smoke" was one characterization provided by Hastert of the controversy surrounding Bush adviser Karl Rove, whom Democrats are accusing of being involved in the disclosure of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name in 2003.
He said all he knows about the case - the subject of an investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald - is that Rove "was giving some people some background" when the alleged disclosure occurred.
Rove reportedly told Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife - Plame - "apparently" worked for the CIA.