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April 17, 2012 – 5:04 p.m.

House Leaders Seek Support for Highway Bill

By Richard E. Cohen and Nathan Hurst, CQ Staff

House GOP leaders are pushing forward on a new short-term extension of surface transportation programs despite strong reservations once again from the party’s conservative ranks.

Conservative Republicans are voicing opposition to Speaker John A. Boehner’s plan to have the House pass another 90-day extension Wednesday in an effort to send the measure to a House-Senate conference committee.

House leaders are reaching out to the rebellious conservatives to rally them behind what would be the 10th extension of road and rail programs since the last comprehensive transportation authorization (PL 109-59) expired in September 2009.

But prospects of success are far from certain, particularly because Boehner’s signature effort to link transportation funding to increased energy exploration has suffered repeated setbacks and left state and local officials without certainty about road and rail programs as the construction season gets under way.

Still, House leaders pressed ahead to bring the short-term measure (HR 4348) to the floor Wednesday. The Rules Committee on Tuesday approved a rule permitting votes on three Republican amendments, two that would curb regulation of energy programs and one that would guarantee funding from the Highway Trust Fund for harbor maintenance.

In a clear sign that Democrats are unlikely to support the bill, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget announced Tuesday that the administration “strongly opposes” the proposed extension.

“By simply extending current authority through the end of the fiscal year, this legislation would miss a critical opportunity to provide more certainty to states and localities as they undertake the long-term planning and execution of projects and programs that are essential to creating and keeping American workers in good paying jobs, improving the nation’s surface transportation infrastructure, and ensuring roadway safety,” the White House statement said.

The statement of administration policy also took aim at the sweetener GOP leaders added to the bill in an effort to draw the support of conservatives, a provision intended to force the administration to approve the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The White House said the provision “seeks to circumvent a longstanding and proven process for determining whether cross-border pipelines are in the national interest and for assessing the environmental impacts . . . despite the fact that the pipeline route has yet to be identified and there is no complete assessment of its potential impacts.”

Republican conservatives are balking in part because they say they were not consulted over the latest leadership gambit designed to advance the short-term bill to a House-Senate conference committee. The Senate passed its $109 billion surface transportation bill (S 1813) with broad bipartisan support in March.

Conservatives also are unhappy that Boehner has abandoned plans for the House to vote later this month on the Republicans’ five-year, $260 billion transportation bill (HR 7). But Rep. John L. Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has tried unsuccessfully for months to satisfy conservatives’ concerns over the cost of the bill, raising questions about Mica’s negotiating position in a prospective conference committee.

“We were told earlier that we would be working on a more extensive bill,” said Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La. “Every time something moves around here at the speed of light, it’s normally not a good thing.” Landry said that he might vote for an extension “at the end of the day,” but that the House ought to debate the broader issues.

Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Ill., said another short-term extension would fail to address the many changes in transportation programs that the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved in February.

House Leaders Seek Support for Highway Bill

“We can do better,” said Hultgren, who serves with Landry on the committee. “This has been such a moving target.”

Hultgren conceded that the longer-term bill lacks the 218 votes needed for House passage, but said that GOP leaders should “make one more try at a bigger bill.”

Many conservatives remain opposed to the cost of a five-year bill and Republican leaders want to avoid a setback on the House floor, GOP aides said.

Search for Consensus

The latest leadership shift is just one of several Boehner has been forced to make in trying to build support for his broad transportation package.

The Speaker’s new preference to advance another short-term extension and send the issue to a conference committee suggests he wants to shift the focus away from the party’s internal divisions and toward the leaders’ latest effort to expedite approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which Republicans have cited as a key part of their response to rising gasoline prices.

A leadership aide all but conceded that little progress was made on the broader transportation bill as had been promised during the recent two-week recess.

Boehner and his aides have largely taken the lead on the transportation bill, and it was the Speaker’s decision to push for the latest short-term extension. Boehner has relied on Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., for what has been an unsuccessful effort to build support for the broad bill. For the most part, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has kept his distance from the issue.

Other conservative Republicans said they were trying to learn details of the latest extension bill and the leadership’s underlying strategy. “How can we vote on a bill that we haven’t seen yet?” asked Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C.

Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said that some conservatives may be more inclined to vote for the extension because of the Keystone provision.

But Jordan, who was one of 10 House Republicans to oppose an earlier 90-day extension bill (HR 4281), added “We need to look at the big picture. . . . We have a $16 trillion debt.”

Rep. Bill Johnson, another Ohio Republican, said the latest extension measure is “still a work in progress.” He said the House needs to move a bill to conference “that the Senate will take seriously.”

Democrats continued their call for the House to take up the Senate version and said House Republicans have not reached out to them.

House Leaders Seek Support for Highway Bill

“It’s clear that the Republican Party is in disarray” on the highway bill and “they have been for months,” said Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md. Republicans “can’t get to 218 in their own caucus, but apparently they can’t get even to a significant number where just a few of us [Democrats] voting for it might make a difference.”

The GOP’s insistence on linking transportation programs with expanded energy production has remained a non-starter for Democrats. Rep. Nick J. Rahall II of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the Transportation panel, is among those pressing for a vote on the House version (HR 14) of the Senate bill, but Republican leaders have resisted that effort.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, remains hopeful that her panel’s legislation will make it through in some form or another — and that could indeed happen if the House vote for the new extension succeeds.

Industry lobbyists say they’re content to support the additional extension if it results in a conference that can produce a longer-term policy bill with funding assurance through next summer’s construction season, as the Senate’s legislation does. But many prefer the increased funding certainty for states, municipalities and road builders that the House’s five-year bill would offer.

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