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Today in Interstate History

Representative George H. Fallon. Photo courtesy of FHWA.

July 27, 1955

The House of Representatives, after weeks of debating and even trying to compromise on two rival Interstate System proposals (see July 6), ended up killing both legislative initiatives. As expected, the House turned down once and for all the Eisenhower Administration's bond-financing plan for the highway network. That legislative chamber, however, also served up a surprise by decisively rejecting the Democratic alternative introduced by Representative George H. Fallon of Maryland. The House Democratic leadership blamed the defeat of that bill on the trucking industry's opposition to it. Republican lawmakers, for their part, attributed the bill's failure to its tax provisions.