It's great that the U.S. House wants to put $20 million toward construction of Interstate 73 to the S.C.-N.C. state line near Bennettsville. But unless Congress designates I-73 for permanent funding, there would be no guarantee that South Carolina ever receives additional federal money toward its construction. That's where U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint comes in.

Last summer, during his Senate campaign against Democrat Inez Tenenbaum, the S.C. education superintendent, DeMint, in a successful attempt to demonstrate his support for I-73, brought Senate transportation powerhouse Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., to the Grand Strand. During that visit, Inhofe promised local leaders he would do all in his power to ensure that I-73 received permanent funding. According to federal highway parlance, projects that receive ongoing federal funding are designated either as "highways of national significance" or as "enhanced corridors."

At that time, local folks doubted DeMint's sincerity about the I-73 project. He professed to support the project. But as an Upstate representative in the U.S. House, he had voted against the 2004 House federal transportation bill that included construction money for I-73. His stated reasons for opposing the bill struck most folks in these parts as babble.

Inhofe's visit added credibility to DeMint's protestations that he really supported the project. After the Oklahoma senator's departure, a torrent of Grand Strand money poured into DeMint's Senate campaign coffers. And on Nov. 2, DeMint carried Horry County over Tenenbaum by a wide margin.

Now, it's payback time for the Upstate senator, who, happily, is a member of the Senate Transportation Committee. Moreover, DeMint is the beneficiary of a clean slate on transportation, as Congress failed to pass a bill in 2004.

As the committee begins work on the 2005 transportation bill, DeMint needs to do all in his power to ensure that the House's $20 million makes it into the Senate bill. If he can persuade the committee to allocate more than that to the project, that would be great.

Equally important, DeMint must - must - ensure that Inhofe keeps his campaign-season promise that our interstate link to the outside world receives permanent funding. Why does permanent funding matter so much?

Designation of the project as a highway of national significance or as an enhanced corridor would ensure that money for the project would flow to our state with regular transportation appropriations. With such designation, the S.C. congressional delegation would have to scrape for construction money every time Congress reauthorizes its transportation bill - which is every five years.

Do the math. The projected cost of the S.C. portion of I-73 is $2 billion. The $20 million the House approved for the project (thanks to the prodigious efforts of U.S. Reps. Henry Brown and John Spratt) would cover only 1 percent of that amount.

Without ongoing funding, in other words, the S.C. portion of I-73 might never get built. The state can't afford to pay for it. And tolls would have to be set so high that few motorists could afford to use it.

DeMint was happy enough to accept Strand money and votes last year. If he doesn't make a demonstrable effort to bring I-73 to fruition on the most favorable term possible, the local folks who helped him will have good reason to feel snookered.