Congress may be forced to pass yet another short-term highway funding bill, despite countless efforts to finalize a long-term solution to a problem that has vexxed Congress for years.
Republican leaders in Congress have not scheduled a vote this week on an as-yet-unseen House and Senate compromise measure that would authorize road and bridge construction and other federal transportation expenses for six years. Members were hoping to have a long-term solution in place by Friday, the deadline for reauthorizing highway spending.
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The two chambers have appointed conference members, but those lawmakers have not sat down together yet to negotiate. The first meeting will happen this week, aides said.
Behind the scenes, staff have been working on a plan to bridge the differences between similar bills passed earlier this year in the House and Senate. But aides aren’t certain both chambers can get through a debate and successfully pass a compromise bill by Nov. 20, when the short-term authorization measure approved three weeks ago will expire.
A congressional source close to the negotiations suggested it might not be possible to finish by the deadline. Congress is scheduled to leave town for the Thanksgiving recess on Friday.
“Scheduling a required meeting of conferees, working out every difference between the two large bills, and passing it through both houses would be a very ambitious goal to achieve in four legislative days,” the source said, adding that another stopgap bill would have to be passed “if Congress isn’t able to complete action on a final measure by then.”
Last month, lawmakers passed a three-week extension of funding authorization to ensure federal road and bridge projects don’t grind to a halt while the House and Senate crafted larger deals. At the time, they expressed confidence that the two chambers could work out a compromise before the Nov. 20 deadline.
Congress is eager to finally clear a multi-year spending bill after more than a decade of passing short-term measures, which are more costly and hinder major project-planning. Congress has passed 36 short-term highway authorization measures since 2005.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who leads the Senate conference, said recently that the House and Senate bills are so similar an agreement on the multi-year plan can be worked out quickly and a bill sent to President Obama by Thanksgiving.
“I have talked to the likely conferees, and they are in accord with the idea that we can do this in a matter of hours, not days,” Inhofe said.
Inhofe, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, warned that if Congress failed to pass the compromise bill by the end of next week, lawmakers would face “significant hurdles,” getting it done after Thanksgiving.
At that point, Inhofe noted, House and Senate lawmakers will be scrambling to pass a massive fiscal 2016 spending bill and other must-pass bills, including a measure to extend a series of tax credit programs that have expired.
While both the House and Senate measures authorize six years of highway repair projects, neither bill funds them beyond three years. Aides would not disclose whether the compromise measure supplies the missing money, but if it doesn’t, then Congress will have to come up with a funding patch at some point in the future.
The House bill, passed earlier this month, would provide $325 billion in transportation funding and includes dozens of amendments added during floor debate.
The Senate passed a similar bill in July and provided funding by stepping up tax code enforcement and selling off a significant portion of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Both bills include a provision that would revive the expired Export-Import Bank, which had to stop taking on new projects after June 30 when its authorization expired.
