House to vote on three-week highway bill

The House is likely to debate a measure to extend federal transportation funding for three weeks on Tuesday in an effort to prevent a highway-funding shutdown. 

The measure (H.R. 3819) would extend federal transportation spending — currently set to expire Oct. 29 — until Nov. 20. Republican leaders in the House have said it will be debated Tuesday to clear the way for a vote before the infrastructure funding deadline later in the week.  

GOP leaders have said the temporary patch will provide time for them to finish work on a six-year, $325 billion transportation funding bill that was approved Thursday by the chamber’s Transportation Committee. 

“Last week, the Transportation Committee unanimously approved the bipartisan, multi-year Surface Transportation Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2015. We look forward to voting on that bill in the House soon and then going to conference with the Senate on their highway bill,” Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) said in a statement when the temporary patch was introduced. 

“I am confident that we can resolve the differences between the House and Senate measures and produce a final product that’s good for our Nation’s infrastructure,” he continued. “This extension will allow the highway bill process to continue moving forward without shutting down transportation programs and projects across the country.” 

The temporary highway bill does not include any new money because lawmakers included enough road funding in three-month transportation bill that was approved in July to last until the end of the year in case they needed more time to finish work on a multiyear fix. The earlier patch is scheduled to expire Thursday, necessitating the new measure that is now being introduced in the House. 

Congress has not passed a transportation funding bill that last longer than two years since 2005, much to the chagrin of infrastructure advocates in Washington.  

The Senate has already passed a bill that includes three years of guaranteed highway funding in July, but the measure was rejected by the House. Lawmakers in the upper chamber have said they expect now to be able to get a multi-year highway bill to Obama’s desk by Thanksgiving.  

“It’s my understanding that house intends to move Chairman Shuster’s six-year reauthorization bill through the full house over the next two weeks,” Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Monday. 

“Unlike in years past, I expect a very short conference period,” he continued. “When I say a very short conference period, it’s because there’s very little difference between the House bill and the Senate bill. I’ve talked to the likely conferees and there are in accord with the idea that we can do this in a matter of hours and not days.” 

The Department of Transportation has warned that it will have to stop making payments to states and local governments for infrastructure projects in November if Congress does not reach an agreement.  

The temporary transportation funding bill also includes a provision that moves a Dec. 31 deadline for railroads to install an automated train navigation system known as Positive Train Control (PTC) to the end of 2018, which Shuster said Monday is “a necessary, bipartisan extension.”