WASHINGTON -- Republican attempts to deny funding to a brownfields redevelopment project on Mount Washington and an airport in Johnstown named for Rep. John Murtha failed this afternoon.

Two separate amendments to a Senate funding bill for the Department of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development failed on mostly party line votes.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced an amendment to strip $1.3 million in funding for brownfield developments, including $200,000 to help clean up 1 Grandview Ave. to make way for a $90 million mixed-use development. Mr. McCain said the projects, including ones in Connecticut and Ohio, have been singled out to be cut by the Obama administration.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter spoke in favor of the Grandview project yesterday on the Senate floor, calling it a "clear-cut matter of looking to the federal government to fulfill its responsibility on an area which has become blighted, a waste site which should have been cleaned up a long time ago under federal law."

The amendment failed, 60 to 37.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., introduced the measure to strip $1.4 million a year in federal funding from the John P. Murtha airport in Johnstown, which has only three flights a day -- all to Washington. Mr. DeMint cited recent news media reports about the airport's low use and said it was an example of wasteful pork by the powerful chair of the Appropriations subcommittee on Defense. The airport has received $150 million in federal support steered by Mr. Murtha, mostly for military purposes.

Both Mr. Specter and fellow Pennsylvania Democratic Senator Casey spoke on the Senate floor in support of the airport and its benefits for Cambria County.

"The least we should do is not target this community and target this airport in the midst of a debate on this transportation appropriations bill," Mr. Casey said.

The amendment failed, 53 to 43.