Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

House Democrats unveiled an $825 billion stimulus package Thursday that aims to save millions of jobs while jump-starting party priorities such as expansion of renewable energy and health insurance for the poor.

The bill reserves $41 billion in grants for local school districts, $40 billion for highway and transit projects, $32 billion for improvements to the electric grid, and $6 billion for broadband Internet. It proposes tax relief of $500 for individuals and $1,000 for families through a reduction in Social Security withholdings.

Texas would get $2.3 billion for highways, $370 million for transit, and $277 million for clean-water projects, based on federal funding formulas.

Democrats say unemployment could still rise as high as 9 percent, even with the stimulus.

"You have to look at this bill not as the salvation for the economy by any means," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis. "What it is: simply the largest effort by any legislative body on the planet to try to take government action to prevent economic catastrophe."

Republicans have balked at the stimulus' price tag and criticized specific measures they think are beyond the scope of emergency relief, such as $400 million to be spent on climate-change research at NASA.

House committees will consider the legislation next week. Democrats hope to approve a bill by Jan. 28.

"The plan released this morning by congressional Democrats was developed with no Republican input and appears to be grounded in the flawed notion that we can simply borrow and spend our way back to prosperity," said House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

A portion of the funds would flow to North Texas public schools, highway projects and public transit. Poorer Texans would get an increase in food-stamp benefits and laid-off workers would have access to health insurance for longer periods of time.

Businesses would be allowed to claim tax refunds by applying current losses to past profits, a provision that has been a lobbying priority for homebuilders such as Dallas-based Centex and Fort Worth-based D.R. Horton.

State officials wanted the stimulus to provide a bounty for highway and transit projects. But the House plan deploys less for infrastructure than some hoped.

"I am a little concerned that the overall number -- at about $30 billion -- sounds like a lot of money but isn't really that much when you spread it around to 50 states," said Texas Department of Transportation Commissioner William Meadows. "Even one large interstate interchange could be $300 million all by itself."

Texas has made no final decision about how the funds it gets will be distributed. Meadows said Congress would likely require a certain amount -- perhaps 45 percent -- to flow directly to regional planning agencies.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit officials said they're considering projects that may qualify for stimulus funds, including a $230 million Blue Line rail extension to Rowlett. "That's a project we could go pretty quickly with," said DART president Gary Thomas. DART may also seek funds to cover some of the $250 million it intends to spend on 537 new buses.

"Texas could be a major beneficiary of the stimulus programs," said Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco.

Mr. Edwards, chairman of House Appropriations' subcommittee on military construction and veterans affairs, said he pushed to include more than $10 billion for defense installations, military housing and veterans hospitals. A significant amount will flow to Texas, which has 16 military bases, 11 veterans hospitals and 44 veterans clinics.

"It addresses the two goals -- stimulating job growth and also building high-priority, lasting projects," Edwards said.

The package also contains assistance for specific industries that appear poised to benefit from Democratic control of Congress, including green energy.

Texas has more wind power capacity than any other state, thanks to federal and state incentives.

The bill would create a new one: $8 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy power generation and transmission projects. Texas could apply to such a program to help cover the cost of its $4.93 billion effort to extend transmission from West Texas -- where wind farms are concentrated -- to urban areas such as Dallas and Houston.

The legislation also would reserve $2.4 billion for the unproven technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emitted by coal power plants. Some of that money may fund a $1.5 billion demonstration plant in President-elect Barack Obama's home state of Illinois, which lost federal funding last year.

Illinois officials have lobbied to include funding for the project, known as FutureGen, in the stimulus.

Some geologists think Texas could become a national laboratory for storing carbon underground, since energy companies are practiced at shooting it into old oil wells to boost production.

"The credit crisis has dried up money for new wind and solar projects, and this is a place to get money," said Jim Marston of the Environmental Defense Fund.

An even larger pot of money, $32 billion, is reserved for improvements to the country's electric grid. Obama called for a "smart grid" during the campaign.

Oncor, a unit of Energy Future Holdings that operates power lines in North Texas, is already spending $690 million to update electric meters. But the company thinks it would be hard for Oncor on its own to get stimulus funds.

"Individual companies trying to compete in their own interests are probably going to be trampled by organizations that can put together region-specific requests," said Oncor spokesman Chris Schein.