CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
March 26, 2012 – 5:21 p.m.
Leaders Seek Deal on Highway Bill
By Nathan Hurst, CQ Staff
House Republicans opened talks with Democrats late Monday in an effort to reach agreement on a temporary extension of surface transportation programs.
The move came after GOP leaders found themselves without enough votes to pass a 90-day extension (
Michael Steel, a spokesman for Speaker
Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader
Reid remains firm that he is not “inclined” to take up the House’s sidelined, three-month extension of the transportation programs, the Democratic aide said, but has not ruled out that possibility. “We have not said what we would do with a 90-day extension,” the aide added.
The derailed House vote is the latest retreat by Republican leaders during a monthslong effort to renew federal highway and transit programs that will expire March 31 without action by Congress — a result that Democrats say could stall road construction projects at the start of the construction season, cost jobs and hurt the economy.
House Democrats had made clear Monday they would oppose the short-term extension, even as Republicans expressed confidence that their conference would support the bill. But without some 50 Democratic votes, the short-term measure was doomed to fall short of the two-thirds majority.
Echoing his party’s repeated calls for House Republicans to allow a vote on a House version (
Minority Whip
Earlier this month, Boehner told Republicans that they would be voting on the Senate’s bill “or something like it” if they did not rally behind a modified version of the five-year, $260 billion measure (
Mica Bill Faced Stiff Opposition
The Florida Republican’s bill, the first House measure to win full committee approval since the 2005 highway law (PL 109-59) expired in September 2009, tied infrastructure spending to expanding domestic oil and gas drilling — a pairing endorsed by Boehner.
Leaders Seek Deal on Highway Bill
Revenue from drilling would be used to fund road, rail and transit projects that cannot be financed by waning gas and diesel tax receipts that feed the Highway Trust Fund.
But almost from the start, Mica’s bill ran into stiff opposition from moderate Republicans and Democrats who objected to its proposal to end an account for mass transit that receives 20 percent of the receipts from the Highway Trust Fund. Many Republican conservatives also opposed the measure’s spending levels and urged that states be given more authority over spending for transportation programs.
Mica said late Monday he was buoyed by what he described as growing support from fellow Republicans for a longer-term bill as he has continued to reach out to the rank and file. He said he is hoping a short-term extension will give him enough time to seal a deal.
“There are negotiations going on now, and hopefully a timetable can be re-established and we’ll go forward,” Mica said.
Although many tea-party-backed conservatives who opposed Mica’s original bill remain skeptical, some conservatives have moved toward a longer-term measure as it has been retooled and proponents have educated Republicans about the legislation’s importance, aides said.
“We’ve been making significant progress,” said one GOP aide. “But we need more time.”
Many stakeholders, including state and local leaders, as well as road builders, continue to press for a longer-term measure to provide more funding stability for roads and transit projects as the construction season gets under way.
GOP leaders have said their original five-year bill would provide more stability than the Senate’s two-year measure, but that argument has been unable to build sufficient support for the long-term measure.
Even before House leaders changed course again late Monday, Reid called the short-term measure a “Band-Aid bill.”
Other Democrats, including
Some lobbyists were approached by Senate aides late last week and urged to float the idea of an even shorter extension — in the range of about 45 to 60 days. But the stakeholders said the 90-day approach was preferable because it would allow enough time for the House to act and a conference committee to resolve differences between the two measures.
“Forty-five days won’t likely get you through conference committee negotiations even in the best of circumstances,” one lobbyist said.
Still, it is clear an extension of some length will be needed to avoid a shutdown of surface transportation programs ahead of the March 31 expiration of the current extension (PL 112-30), which has been in effect since September.
Leaders Seek Deal on Highway Bill
Niels Lesniewski, Alan K. Ota, Anne L. Kim and Richard E. Cohen contributed to this story.