Senate to complete highway bill vote-o-rama next week

“Its 4:15 p.m. … we have a locked-in set of amendments now, there is no reason to work into the night,” he said. “We have had a good week, we will have a good week next week, I wish everyone a good break.”

Reid announced the deal to vote on 30 amendments late Wednesday night after the Senate had agonized on how to move forward on amendments to the bipartisan highway bill for more than a month. 

Prior to that announcement Thursday afternoon, the Senate completed just seven of the planned 30 votes. Among them were competing amendments from Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) relating to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Hoeven’s amemdent, number 1537, would have authorized the pipeline
without President Obama’s approval, will Wyden’s, number 1817, would block exporting oil brought into the country through the
controversial pipeline.

Both amendments failed to receive the 60 votes that would have been necessary to add them to the $109 billion Senate transportation bill.

Senate Democrats vowed to continue the amendment voting next week and send the highway bill to the House, which has already signaled it would likely take up whatever version of the transportation legislation is ultimately passed by the upper chamber.

“I hope the Speaker will spare the American people yet another unnecessary battle and pass the Senate’s bipartisan transportation jobs bill without delay,” Reid said Thursday.

-This post was updated with new information at 5:50 p.m.