WASHINGTON -- Congress yesterday overwhelmingly approved a $286.4 billion, multi-year highway and mass transit bill, sending the measure on to President Bush after resolving a brief but bitter dogfight over opening a closed runway at a U.S. Air Force base in Montana.

The House voted 412-8 to approve the massive surface transportation bill, which is designed to help ease the nation's traffic congestion while creating thousands of construction jobs and increasing the amount of federal transportation money sent to each state. All Western Pennsylvania House members supported it.

Later in the day, the Senate followed suit, approving the measure, 91-4. President Bush is expected to sign the 1,000-plus-page bill, which sets transportation funding priorities for 2004-2009. All Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia senators backed the bill as well.

Under the legislation, states by 2008 are guaranteed a return of at least 92 percent of their gasoline-tax contributions to the federal Highway Trust Fund. States now receive a 90.5 percent return on their gas-tax contributions.

The measure will produce "safer roads that are built faster and last longer," said House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska. As an example of how much the bill is needed, Young noted that Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, the top Democrat on his transportation panel, was late to the House floor because he was stuck in traffic.

But Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., one of a handful of lawmakers to vote against the bill, noted that it earmarked money for more than 6,000 special projects requested by lawmakers. Those projects are worth more than $23 billion, according to a group called Taxpayers for Common Sense.

"That is no way to spend money," said Flake, acknowledging that he felt like a "skunk at a wedding, or -- more accurately -- roadkill," for his opposition to the popular measure.

Earlier this week, a House-Senate conference committee finally completed work on the transportation bill, ending a divisive two-year battle between Congress and the White House over how much money to spend on transportation projects.

Given that the bill contains billions of dollars for each state as well as specific projects for nearly every congressional district, no one doubted that the compromise bill eventually would be approved before lawmakers headed home for their August recess.

But the measure's fate suddenly was up in the air late Thursday, when Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn, objected to one of hundreds of provisions in the measure. That item would have required the federal government to reopen a runway, closed in the 1995 base-closing process, at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Mont. Shays, whose state could lose a submarine base under the latest round of base closings, called the provision "absolutely outrageous" and demanded that it be removed before the House action on the transportation bill.

House leaders then decided to put off a vote until yesterday morning. By then, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., author of the runway provision, had reluctantly agreed to eliminate it from the transportation bill. But Baucus also angrily denounced the House for opposing the provision, saying it would merely reopen a runway on an active Air Force base and help Montana keep its Air National Guard mission.

"I can't possibly put into words my outrage for what the House has done," said Baucus, who had touted the provision to Montana residents in news releases earlier this week. "But I cannot allow the highway bill to be a victim of the House action."

While the House discussed the highway bill for nearly an hour yesterday morning, the Senate debate was briefer, as lawmakers rushed to get out of town for their annual August break.

But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., known for his efforts to highlight what he sees as budget-busting "pork" projects, insisted on taking time to list some of the projects "stuffed in [the legislation] late at night."

The bill provides money for everything from the Apollo Theater in New York City to a wood composite products demonstration project at the University of Maine, McCain complained.

"This is a remarkable piece of work," he added sarcastically. "It's terrifying in its fiscal consequences and disappointing for the lack of fiscal discipline it represents. I wonder what it will take to make the case for fiscal sanity here."

Joining McCain in voting against the bill were Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas; Judd Gregg, R-N.H.; and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

But Mothers Against Drunk Driving officials praised several safety provisions inserted into the transportation bill, including $29 million to beef up law enforcement efforts to deter drunken driving.