By Nathan Hurst, CQ Staff

Prospects for a highway bill conference agreement appeared to dim Wednesday, as House and Senate negotiators traded blame for their lack of progress on major areas of disagreement.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., called conservative House Republican conferees “militants, radicals, extremists.”

In response, Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., accused Senate Democrats of “refusing to acknowledge that this is a bicameral process.”

Unless the impasse is broken in time to clear a bill before the end of the month, another extension of highway programs will be needed to avoid bringing transportation spending to a mid-summer halt.

Rhetoric aside, the most substantive disagreement appeared to involve the determination of House Republicans to go further than the Senate is willing to go in order to ease environmental and regulatory reviews of transportation projects. House Republicans want to set deadlines for completion of some regulatory reviews, while Senate Democrats insist on “safety valves” that would allow regulators to get extensions.

Shuster also said Republicans want to see movement by the Senate to further restrict the transportation enhancement program, which currently requires states to set aside a portion of surface transportation aid for programs such as highway beautification and walking and biking trails. The Senate bill would allow states to spend that money on a wider array of projects, but Shuster said House Republicans want to let states opt out of the program altogether and reallocate the funds to highway maintenance and expansion.

Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said he would reach out to House Republicans “to make sure they appreciate the reforms that we were able to get in over here, that I’m still in shock we were able to do it.”

But House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John L. Mica, R-Fla., also complained that the “Senate leadership appears unwilling to compromise at all on the Keystone XL pipeline.” House Republicans want language that would mandate a speedy approval of the oil pipeline from Canada.

Senate Democrats have resisted what they view as a partisan effort to embarrass President Obama, and Senate Environment Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said negotiators have not tackled what she termed “extraneous” issues unrelated to core transportation programs.

Senate Democrats stepped up the political pressure on House Republicans, calling on the leadership to take up and clear the Senate-passed highway bill (S 1813) if they can’t reach an agreement on the bill now in conference (HR 4348) and accusing the GOP negotiators of putting thousands of jobs at risk. The Senate bill passed with a strong bipartisan majority, and Democrats in both chambers insist it would easily clear the House if brought to the floor.

Boxer, the conference chairwoman, offered a two-word response when asked to assign blame for the failure so far to reach a conference agreement: “House Republicans.”

Feeling Pressured

For their part, House negotiators were unhappy about the pressure tactics, including Boxer’s appearance at an event at the foot of Capitol Hill sponsored by a group called the “Transportation Construction Coalition.” The group launched a radio advertising “blitz” on Wednesday urging constituents of Republican House members Dave Camp of Michigan, Steve Southerland II of Florida, Pat Tiberi of Ohio and James Lankford of Oklahoma to ask: “Will your congressman be part of the problem, or part of the transportation solution?”