DALLAS - The Senate passed a short-term transportation bill Thursday that averts a looming road construction shutdown on Aug. 1 as well as a separate multiyear measure that could be the starting point for a long-term deal with the House this fall.
Senators sent the three-month measure extending the Highway Trust Fund through Oct. 29 to President Obama on a 91-4 vote. The House approved the bill (H.R. 3236), on Wednesday and then recessed until after Labor Day.
The Senate passed the six-year DRIVE Act transportation bill on a 65-34 vote before adopting the short-term fix. The multiyear bill had been adopted unanimously June 24 by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Without the 90-day extension, the Transportation Department would have rationed reimbursements to states for highway and transit projects when the two-month HTF fix approved by Congress in May was set to expire.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said Obama would sign the 90-day bill with reluctance.
"The unfortunate reality is that, due to inaction, Congress will need to pass this other short-term extension to keep federal funding for the surface transportation system flowing," Schultz said.
The latest extension, which is the 34th short-term patch to the HTF since 2009, will transfer $8.1 billion of general fund revenues into the HTF to supplement collections from the federal gasoline tax and other levies dedicated to transportation. It brings total transfers of general revenues into the HTF to more than $70 billion since 2008.
The 90-day extension was a modification of the five-month HTF patch that the House passed July 15. The Transportation Department's reimbursement authority was extended to Oct. 29 with the bill, but the $8.1 billion transfusion should keep the HTF solvent until mid-December.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., one of the main architects of the Senate multiyear bill, said the modified short-term measure was a reaction by House leaders to the pending vote on the DRIVE Act.
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell the three-month extension would give the House time to develop its own transportation funding proposal. The differences two measures could then be reconciled in a committee into a compromise bill that could be passed before the end of the year, he said.
The House will develop its proposal after the August recess, he said.
"We'll conference the legislation we pass with what the House passes and then send a unified bill to President Obama," McConnell said. "In the meantime, we'll work with our friends in the House to give them the space they need to develop a multiyear highway bill."
He said the disputes between senators over the $45 billion of revenue offsets in the multiyear bill and disagreements with the House over an amendment reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank are "all part of the democratic rhythm."
"That's especially true when you're talking about a measure as complicated and consequential as a multiyear highway bill," McConnell said.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he and McConnell agree on the need for a multiyear reauthorization of surface transportation funding.
"We both want to get to a long-term highway bill," Boehner said Wednesday following the House vote. "Sen. McConnell and I are frankly going to work very closely to try to minimize the differences. I'm confident as we get into this fall, we're going to have pretty smooth sailing."
Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the 90-day extension gives the House "time to put forward a fiscally responsible long-term surface transportation proposal when Congress returns and then go to conference with the Senate."
