House Passes 5-Month Highway Funding Patch
The House on July 15 passed a five-month extension of federal highway funding authority, giving the Senate about two weeks to act on the measure before such authority expires.
By a 312-119 vote, the House advanced the Republican-backed bill that would approve $8 billion for the Highway Trust Fund, to ensure its solvency through mid-December. The legislation, sponsored by the chairmen of the tax and transportation policy committees, has the support of the Obama White House.
Republican leaders indicated having the short-term funding patch would give them additional time to craft a long-term highway bill.
“We want to do a multiyear highway bill, and typically a multiyear highway bill means a six-year bill, and that is our aspiration and our goal. We know we’re not going to write that bill in the next two weeks. We know we need at least two or three months to write that bill … So we’re here to extend the Highway Trust Fund through Dec. 18 to give us the time we need to put together a multiyear solution,” said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the bill’s co-sponsor and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. The panel’s jurisdiction includes the trust fund.
The bill is backed by $5 billion from certain tax compliance provisions, and $3 billion by extending for two years an airline security fee.
Prior to the vote, more than a dozen Democrats took to the floor to criticize the measure. Vermont Democrat Rep. Pete Welch called it a “joke of a short-term plan.”
In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has triggered the procedural motion to bring to the floor a highway measure this week. The degree of support for a short-term patch in the Senate remains to be seen since top Republicans, such as Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, chairmen there of the Finance and Environment and Public Works committees, respectively, have been pushing for a multiyear highway bill this year.
Meanwhile, trucking industry leaders and many transportation groups have urged Congress to raise taxes on fuels to boost the Highway Trust Fund. Republican leaders, however, have rejected tax increases.
