By Nathan Hurst, CQ Staff

With Senate and House leaders saying time is running short, highway bill negotiators expect to get another counteroffer from the Senate early this week.

Highway conference Chairwoman Barbara Boxer has a self-imposed mid-June target to wrap up a deal on the legislation (HR 4348), and House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said last week that if a deal can’t be done by the end of June he would seek to extend the law again, this time beyond November’s elections.

“He wants to move the process, let people know that . . . time is running out, the options are short,” House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John L. Mica said about Boehner’s warning. “We have to come to a conclusion. There’s a highly technical term for this: You can’t poop around.”

Boehner issued his warning at the time the House answered an earlier Senate proposal. Mica, the Florida Republican who is leading House conferees, said June 8 that the House’s recess this week shouldn’t impede momentum. Conferees should expect to keep in contact by phone as the Senate returns counteroffers, he said.

The Senate’s initial offer — hand-delivered to Mica’s office June 5 by Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and the panel’s ranking Republican, James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma — covered titles approved by the Senate’s Commerce, Environment and Banking committees. According to aides, it was largely similar to the Senate’s two-year, $109 billion transportation bill (S 1813).

House negotiators have hoped to include at least some of the major policy provisions included in the five-year, $260 billion highway bill (HR 7) that leaders never brought to the floor for a vote.

The House counteroffer included language that would allow states to opt out of the transportation enhancements program, which sets aside a portion of Highway Trust Fund grants to states for such projects as bicycle lanes, pedestrian paths and roadside beautification, aides said.

The original House bill would have eliminated the program, while the Senate bill (S 1813) would give states more discretion in how to spend the funds.

By the end of last week, House aides continued to pore through other areas of the Senate offer, including safety provisions and research programs. The Senate bill generally included stronger highway safety language than the House bill.

One development, viewed by leaders as positive, was the June 8 defeat of a motion by Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., that would have instructed House conferees to insist that highway bill expenditures in fiscal 2013 do not exceed tax receipts generated for the Highway Trust Fund. This would have had the effect of cutting spending from current levels.

“America is broke, and we have to stop this deficit spending,” Broun said during the debate on his motion June 7, after referencing transfers from the General Fund to the highway fund in recent years to keep up with spending.

The motion was defeated, 82-323, signaling that House Republicans weren’t likely to kill a conference report that requires additional budget offsets to supplement the Highway Trust Fund — although the vote also shows that House leaders are likely to need Democratic votes.

That may give Boxer and her Senate colleagues more leverage as they press ahead with negotiations.