GEORGIA - Thanks to discord in Washington, Georgia may get a reprieve for more than $80 million in federal earmarks that it won years ago for commuter rail.

Georgia won the earmarks to build a commuter rail line from Atlanta south through Lovejoy, but it has done little with them.

That is now a problem.

Earlier this year, the head of a congressional committee told earmark holders: If the money is idle, we want it back. That spread fear among the Lovejoy line's supporters.

But the bill where Congress would deal with that, a six-year law for U.S. transportation spending, is running into obstacles. Namely, a very full plate in Washington.

U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.), who wrote the letter, wants to do the bill right away, but President Barack Obama wants to wait a year and a half and concentrate on health care and the environment for now. That means if unused earmarks are going to be yanked, Georgia may have a year and a half to demonstrate it can make progress.

"I think the pressure about the earmarks is a little bit off," the director of the Atlanta Regional Commission, Chick Krautler, told the ARC board Wednesday.