Opening volleys: US chamber of commerce study focuses attention on links between ports and inland transportation. (Ports/Intermodal).

As Congress and the administration prepare for next year's reauthorization of the law that guides billions of dollars in funding for the nation's highways, various policy groups are gearing up to try to influence the debate.

"You are beginning to see the emergence of strategies and philosophies, some still conceptual and some with a little more meat on the bone," said Joni Casey, president of the Intermodal Association of North America. IANA is one of several dozen members of the advisory panel to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is in the midst of a 14-month, $450,000 study of the North American port and intermodal system. The study is scheduled for completion this fall. The chamber hopes it will lay groundwork for renewal of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) and focus attention on Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta's call for a "SEA-21" program to coordinate landside transportation with the nation's maritime system.

Hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake. A successor to TEA-21 will determine spending from the highway trust fund, which is financed by federal fuel taxes. During the current six-year TEA-21 program, which expires on Sept. 30, 2003, $218 billion was authorized from the trust fund. …