It appears that the bombing in London have spurred some action in Washington. Andrew Taylor has the story for the Associated Press.

Three weeks before London's bus and subway bombings, a Senate committee voted to slash spending on mass transit security in the United States, a decision sure to be reversed when Congress returns next week.

At a minimum, the Senate will restore the $50 million cut, G. William Hoagland, top budget aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Friday.

There is pressure for a lot more, though adding to rail and transit security programs means cutting elsewhere in the Homeland Security Department's $32 billion budget for next year. That places severe limits on what Congress can do — at least if it plays by its budget rules.

Despite the March 2004 bombing of Madrid's subway system, U.S. officials have been consumed with preventing a repeat of the airliner hijackings that produced the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

In a stroke of bad timing, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted last month to slash money for rail and transit security grants to state and local government by a third from the $150 million devoted to them this year. As of May, none of the money had been distributed by the Homeland Security Department.

The House would match current funding in a bill it passed in May. President Bush proposed bundling rail, transit and bus security grants into one $600 million program that would also fund security improvements at ports and other critical facilities such as chemical plants. Both the House and Senate have rejected that idea.

It will be interesting to see if Congress will actually follow through with promises to bump up mass transit spending.