Sen. Mike Johanns singlehandedly stopped $300 million in federal highway funds from moving forward during a U.S. Senate debate in late September.

Nebraska would have received $64.8 million for highway and street construction and maintenance from those funds, including more than $4.5 million for Lincoln streets and $11.2 million for Omaha.

But Johanns says that even without his objection, the funding was dead because the House "wasn't going to approve the funding anyway."

"This was never going to happen. It wasn't a serious attempt," he said of the Sept. 30 move by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., for unanimous consent to put $300 million in federal highway funding into the budget.

"If you really are serious, you work to put votes together. You work to get the House with you. And none of those things had occurred here," Johanns said in a telephone interview Thursday.

"This was really more political theater than a serious attempt to fix the problem."

Johanns objected to the inclusion of the $300 million during Senate debate on the issue as a unanimous consent request, meaning a single objection stopped the item from moving forward.

Johanns supplied that objection, although he said he was speaking on behalf of Sen. David Vitter, R-La., who wasn't present.

Boxer's goal was to replenish the highway trust fund with money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was intended to bail out banks.

Johanns suggested Congress get the $300 million from unused stimulus funding instead of using TARP money.

But Boxer, who said she had support from some Republicans, rejected that suggestion.

When asked why he didn't just leave the room and not voice the death-blow objection, Johanns said, "Because you shouldn't do that. Too much of that (game playing) goes on here.

"I offered a solution, but very clearly they did not want to use stimulus money. They wanted to use TARP money. This proves to me this wasn't a serious attempt to fix the problem."

During the evening debate, Johanns also criticized the way TARP funding has been used.

"It's become a slush fund," he said.

He suggested stimulus money was the appropriate source to shore up the highway trust fund.

The Nebraska Democratic Party criticized Johanns' actions in a news release Thursday afternoon.

"When given the chance ... Mike Johanns sided with Wall Street and against Main Street Nebraska," state Chairman Vic Covalt said in a statement.

"Johanns cost our communities vital dollars that would have funded local projects and created jobs," the release said.

The $300 million was the difference between what Congress had said states and cities could spend and what Congress actually appropriated in the six-year federal highway budget.

Both Lincoln and Nebraska Department of Roads officials understood this money might never be appropriated and have not contracted for any work based on that higher number.

"It was kind of ghost money. We weren't really counting on it," said Mary Jo Oie of the Department of Roads.

"But we could have used it," said Roger Figard, Lincoln city engineer.

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.