CONSERVATIVES DON'T APPRECIATE FEDERAL THREATS

Efforts to reduce the blood-alcohol level constituting proof of intoxication to 0.08 percent have failed time and again in Missouri, one of 31 states that still use the 0.10 standard. Sixteen states, including Illinois, have moved to the lower standard through the deliberations of their elected representatives in their respective state legislatures. Fair enough. Deliberations of the people's elected representatives is how these decisions should be made, and if these lawmakers decide that is what they want, then they should do so.

This emphatically isn't what is happening here. States stand to get hit hard in the pocketbook if they don't fall in line. Congressional negotiators agreed week before last to push the 31 states with the higher limit to make the change or lose 2 percent of their federal highway funds starting in 2004, rising to 8 percent by 2007. The requirement, included in a transportation spending bill, is supported by President Clinton and is expected to become law soon.

For Missouri, a 2 percent loss in 2004 would amount to $8.7 million, and by 2007 the total would rise to $34.8 million.

Early indications are that the federal blackmail is likely to have the desired effect. A key senator who has long opposed lowering the limit to 0.08 percent says that he will vote for the change if the alternative is a significant loss of federal highway money. This is all the more likely given the state of Missouri's under-funded highway and bridge-building plan.

Meanwhile, with federal blackmail like this, the folks who elected this Congress have reason to wonder how much, really, has changed.