The Highway: How to Remove Billboards

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Spellbound Senators. He proposed a better way. Each state should merely pay each billboard company to take down its signs as leases expire. In one blow, red tape would be minimized.

Knowing exactly where they stood, the companies could say to their banks: "We are going to be compensated. Can we have money to start to diversify?" The "Snarr Plan" would cost some $500 million and offensive billboards would vanish in a few years.

Despite its logic, the Snarr Plan will not be tested until a bill introduced by Utah's Senator Frank Moss is passed to authorize $15 million for a pilot sign-removal project in several states. Snarr is lobbying hard for it. Even hardened Congressmen find him irresistible. Speaking before the Senate subcommittee on roads last June, he explained his plan and exalted "the inspiration of America." The Senators were spellbound; John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky was reportedly on the verge of tears. Last week the subcommittee approved the Moss bill, which now goes to the floor for the consideration it surely merits.