Millions of dollars approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee include $1.5 million to keep the South Frontage Road extension project alive.

Appropriations bills approved Thursday for transportation, housing, urban development and general government for fiscal year 2008 contain $486 million directed toward all highway projects in Mississippi, said the office of U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi.

Cochran, former chairman, is now ranking Republican on the committee.

State transportation officials said it’s not enough to finish the project by any means, but it’s a small first step to seeing it through.

&#8220It certainly helps to be feeding some money to it,” Mississippi Department of Transportation Central District Commissioner Dick Hall said. &#8220It keeps the process going.”

A $2.5 million environmental review of the long-proposed construction by the Federal Highway Administration was completed in June and found &#8220no significant impact” to the area’s natural resources and overall traffic flow.

Hall has said money left over from the study will be carried over toward construction costs.

Under discussion for at least 15 years, extending the road will entail building a bridge from its ending point at Old Highway 27 near Watkins’ Nursery, across the railroad right-of-way to Vicksburg Factory Outlets.

Jackson-based engineering firm Neel-Shaffer, the study’s authors, has estimated the total cost of the bridge between $9 million and $15 million.

Even if the funding announced Thursday survives the full Senate, the project remains years from completion.

Other projects in Mississippi set to receive funding by the committee’s actions include: