The Senate passed a long-stalled bill to authorize billions of dollars in water resources projects, after sponsors mollified Louisiana senators and fiscal conservatives.

Senators voted, 91-4, to pass the bill (HR 1495) on Wednesday. It will now move to a conference with the House, which passed a bill with a similar price tag last month.

“This has not been easy,” said Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who managed the bill on the floor. “And someday when I write my book on how a bill really becomes a law, I will let everyone know what it really takes to get a bill like this done, a bill that is seven years in the making.”

The vote came after hours of intense negotiations Wednesday with Louisiana’s senators, Republican David Vitter and Democrat Mary L. Landrieu, who worried that the bill would not do enough to protect Gulf Coast cities vulnerable to hurricanes.

One of their main objections was over a decision to drop language that would expedite the authorization of barriers, levees and other projects designed to protect against the most severe type of hurricane, Category 5. That provision would have allowed the Senate Environment panel and the House Transportation and Infrastructure panel to authorize Category 5 storm-protection projects without further congressional action.

The Congressional Budget Office had estimated that the language, which was included in the version of the bill (S 1248) the Senate Environment Committee approved, would cost more than $15 billion.

To assuage the Louisiana senators, Boxer and the committee’s ranking Republican, James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, agreed to add a modified provision that would require the White House to recommend which hurricane-protection projects to authorize, based on an Army Corps of Engineers report due by the end of the year.

The provision would require committee markups of authorizing legislation within 45 days of the White House report, limit Senate floor debate to 20 hours and bar non-germane amendments.

“I’m very excited because it’s hot off the press, to announce we will have that expedited process,” Vitter said.

The bill would authorize funding for hundreds of inland navigation, coastal restoration and flood-control projects, with a large portion of the money headed to beef up storm protection for coastal Louisiana. Congress has not enacted a water resources authorization bill since 2000 (PL 106-541).

The bill also includes funding for more than 100 environmental infrastructure projects, such as wastewater treatment plants, that were not in the committee-approved bill.

The new projects could make it easier for conferees to reach a deal, because previous efforts by the House to win backing for similar projects has faced Senate resistance. Including the projects carries added significance because the House is operating under new rules that bar conferees from adding projects not included in the bills passed by either chamber.

“That means the stakes go up,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of programs for Taxpayers for Common Sense. “If it’s not in the House bill and it’s not in the Senate bill, then it’s not supposed to be in there.”

Negotiators also will have to agree on new oversight requirements for expensive Army Corps of Engineers projects, an issue that has led to previous impasses. The Senate bill would require projects costing $40 million or more to undergo independent review; the House bill has more relaxed language.

“If the reforms are in any way weakened, that’s going to be a problem,” said Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who sponsored the Senate language.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., the likely conference chairman, said he expects House-Senate negotiations to last “no more than a couple of hours.”

Negotiations off the Senate floor Wednesday also focused on resolving concerns of two fiscal conservatives who had planned to bring amendments to the floor.

Boxer and Inhofe added at least 17 new provisions and projects at the request of other senators. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., objected to projects in Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii and Iowa. In the end, the projects remained in the bill.

But Coburn and Jim DeMint, R-S.C., won adoption of language aimed at reducing the estimated $58 billion backlog of Army Corps of Engineers water projects. The language would require annual reports from the corps on project funding and projects not receiving construction funding in nine years to be deauthorized.

The White House has strongly objected to the bill’s cost but did not threaten a veto.

“If history is any guide, with every step in the process this bill gets bigger,” Ellis said.