AUSTIN — A transportation funding measure strongly supported by North Texas leaders appeared in peril Friday night as a key House member said it would not be included in a final version of massive legislation overhauling the Department of Transportation.

"It is my intention not to have — not to support — a conference committee report with a local option," said Rep. Carl Isett, R-Lubbock, sponsor of the House version of the Transportation Department bill.

Isett is the leader of five House negotiators who have been working with their Senate counterparts to produce a final version of the legislation. The sides have disagreed sharply over whether to include the local-option funding bill in the larger measure.

The local-option bill was included in the Senate’s version of the bill but was not in the House bill; House members instructed the conferees not to include local option in the final version.

The measure, SB855, would allow counties to raise money to fund local rail and road projects.

Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, sponsor of SB855 and one of the Senate’s five conferees, responded to Isett’s comments by declaring that a bill without the local option would be "dead on arrival" in the Senate.

"What he’s doing is a deliberate and political ploy," said Carona, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee. "The only reason that our bill is not going to the House floor is because the House conferees refuse to acknowledge the support that exists for local option" in the House.

'Take it or leave it’

Carona said he expected the House to send the Senate its version of the bill "and say take it or leave it."

"My intention is to lead the charge to say, 'No thanks. We’ll leave it,’ " Carona said. "I’d say at this point there are several things that can happen. There is still the possibility of passage despite the drama taking place in the House."

The latest developments came just three days before the Legislature adjourns. Either chamber could refuse to accept the report and appoint new conferees to try to deal with objectionable provisions. A chamber could also reject it and refuse to appoint conferees, killing the bill.

The funding bill is the top legislative priority for many North Texas political leaders, who say it is urgently needed to rescue the nation’s fourth-most-populous region from worsening pollution.

"Without it, we’re in deep trouble," Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief said. Reached Friday night by phone, Moncrief said he "had heard a number of comments from a number of directions" about the bill’s fate.

"Until the Legislature adjourns sine die, I’m not willing to say one way or another whether this needed tool . . . is going to be part of our future or not," said Moncrief, a former state senator.

North Texas lobbying

Throngs of North Texas officials rallied on the south steps of the Capitol on Friday in an attempt to rescue the embattled legislation. Speaker after speaker delivered impassioned pleas to save the local-option provision.

Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley gave credit to lawmakers working on behalf of the measure and declared, "If the other members of the Legislature won’t step up and lead, or at least follow those who are trying to lead, then it’s time for them to get out of the way."

The measure, he said, "has been misrepresented in a lot of ways. This is not a tax bill."

Carona, addressing the rally, described supporters of the bill as "a team of fighters" and said he would not accept a transportation bill without the provision.

"Under no circumstances in the remaining days of the Legislature are we backing down," Carona said.

He later told reporters: "I will absolutely let the bill go down" if House conferees reject the local-option provision.

Carona said supporters have secured written or verbal commitments from a majority of House members, indicating that the bill would pass the House if it clears the conference committee.

But the five House conferees continued to resist the Senate-passed local-option provision.

Isett and House Transportation Committee Chairman Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, said in separate interviews that many House members, including themselves, did not believe that a transportation funding bill belonged in a measure designed to improve the Transportation Department, which oversees the state’s vast road network.

"How we build highways and how we pay for highways are two separate conversations," Isett said.

Pickett, another member of the House conference committee, said he supported the concept of stand-alone local option but said it should not be part of the larger bill. "I’m afraid if it stays in the bill, the bill may not make it," Pickett said.

'Let us vote’

More than 200 city council members, chamber of commerce officials, business leaders and others made the trip from North Texas to gather in sweltering heat on the steps of the Capitol. They held signs such as "End Congestion — We Need Local Option" and "Support Local Control" and at one point chanted, "Let us vote."

The message from each of the speakers was laced with the same warning: that North Texas’ notorious traffic congestion will get worse unless the Legislature allows voters to finance needed projects, including more than 200 miles of regional rail.

"My people want the right to vote on this," said Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller, House sponsor of the local-option bill. "I live in one of the most Republican districts in the state of Texas. Do you think I would be here if my people didn’t want this? They want it. And that’s why I’m willing to fall on the sword over it."

Opponents of the local-option bill also gathered on the steps of the Capitol, standing alongside the North Texas group in a counterprotest organized by Empower Texans and other conservative groups. Michael Quinn Sullivan, who leads Empower Texans, said about 120 turned out for the counterprotest.

"We don’t think these taxes are necessary in this economy," said Peggy Venable, Texas director of Americans for Prosperity. She said Texans would rather have automatic tax rollback elections than an election to raise taxes.