WASHINGTON -- U.S. Senate action on legislation to fund the nation's roads and bridges for three years will stretch into next week, just days before a Friday deadline, putting pressure on both chambers to consider a short-term extension, officials said.
Without action, the Highway Trust Fund would begin to run short during next weekend's start of a scheduled August recess for House members.
The Senate on Friday advanced in a 51-26 vote a bipartisan plan to fund U.S. highways and mass transit for three years. Republican Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton of Arkansas did not vote.
Friday's vote will be followed by further Senate action as soon as Sunday, lawmakers said, including procedural votes on amendments to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank and a proposal by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
"Our country needs a multiyear highway bill and we'll get there if we just continue to stick together," McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor after the vote.
But House Republican leaders this week declared the Senate's funding measure dead on arrival. They have urged the Senate to debate a House bill that would provide funds through Dec. 18, leaving time for talks on finding other sources of money for infrastructure.
Failure to act before the end of the month would mean payments to states for road and bridge projects could soon be reduced and spread out, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Friday.
"I hope we don't keep perpetuating the problems and not looking squarely at what the country needs," Foxx said.
An expiration of highway funding could trigger 4,000 layoffs at the Transportation Department, Foxx said, including employees at the Federal Highway Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
As the Highway Trust Fund balance runs low, the U.S. will deliver remaining funds to states based on allocation funding until it's out of money, Foxx said.
"It's definitely not a small impact," he said.
Some state governors said Friday that federal lawmakers should look at funding options such as raising the federal fuel tax, since many states have had to increase their own.
Several state executives discussed the issue during a meeting of the National Governors Association in West Virginia.
"I guess the message for Congress is: We understand that's not popular," said Republican Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, who signed a bill in 2013 to raise his state's fuel tax. "But we did it anyway and took the political hits that go with that."
The federal gas tax, 18.4 cents a gallon, and the diesel fuel tax, 24.4 cents a gallon, were last increased in 1993. But Americans drive less per capita, cars are more fuel-efficient and construction costs have risen, driving down the amount of revenue from the taxes.
Partially because of that, the money available to states from the Federal Highway Trust Fund has declined 3.5 percent during the five-year period ending in 2013, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.
Seeking more state cash to patch up highway infrastructure is getting bipartisan support. GOP governors in Georgia, Iowa, South Dakota and Utah are among those who have approved road tax increases. Other Republican-leaning states, including North Carolina and Michigan, are still looking at ways to draw in more money for their roads.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, said Friday that he is amazed federal lawmakers have shied away from even discussing adding a penny or two to the federal gas tax.
"It is a user fee on transportation users," he said, "but there's no stomach up there for them to even discuss that issue."
Cruz attacks
Also Friday, Senate Republican leaders announced plans to use the highway-funding bill to try to overturn President Barack Obama's health care law and to allow a vote on renewing the federal Export-Import Bank, which many conservatives oppose.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a presidential candidate, immediately attacked McConnell on the Senate floor for allowing the amendment on the bank.
The Export-Import Bank provides loans, loan guarantees and insurance to aid overseas sales by U.S. companies. The 81-year-old bank is opposed by conservative Republicans who say it benefits only a few large corporations that don't need government assistance.
An amendment to the highway bill offered by Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., would reauthorize the Export-Import Bank through September 2019. It would require the bank to increase the share of its lending that goes to small businesses, mandate an inspector general audit of its risk management practices and create a chief ethics officer for the bank.
The bank currently can't approve new applications unless Congress acts to revive it, though it can continue work on existing agreements.
McConnell has long indicated he would allow a vote on the Export-Import Bank as an amendment on the highway bill. Senate supporters of the bank said they got that commitment from McConnell in the course of debate on a separate trade bill, though there's been some dispute about what precisely was agreed to.
The majority leader said Friday he offered the health law repeal because the Export-Import Bank vote "shouldn't be the only vote" on a highway bill amendment.
Cruz insisted that McConnell had promised not to seek a renewal of the bank.
"It saddens me to say this. I sat in my office, I told my staff the majority leader looked me in the eye and looked 54 Republicans in the eye. I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out lie," Cruz said on the Senate floor.
"We now know that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and makes an explicit commitment that he is willing to say things that he knows are false."
Cruz also said the amendment to repeal the Affordable Care Act was "meaningless political theater" and an "empty show vote" that would fail.
The majority leader was not on the Senate floor when Cruz issued his attack, and he ignored reporters who tried to ask him about it in the Capitol's hallways. A spokesman said McConnell would have no response.
No senator rose to defend McConnell on the floor. But questioned by reporters later, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, challenged Cruz's criticism of McConnell.
"I think it's wrong to disclose private information, especially when the disclosure is not accurate," he said.
"Keep in mind, he's running for president," Hatch added. "People who run for president do some very interesting things."
House objections
Even before the announced amendments on the Affordable Care Act and the Export-Import Bank, House leaders said they won't agree to the Senate plan.
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said the chamber already passed "a responsible approach last week to fund our highway program through the end of this calendar year, and continues to work to get a long-term, fully funded bill in place."
The House plan, passed 312-119 last week, would fund highways through Dec. 18 with $8.1 billion in revenue gained mostly by tightening tax compliance rules.
That short-term funding is intended to buy time for lawmakers while they work on an ambitious plan to tie international tax changes to a six-year highway-funding bill.
Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman, said this week, "I am going to oppose this," when asked about the Senate plan.
Shuster said he'd be willing to stick around Washington to finish a bill, but that other House members have set plans for the start of the recess. He said there wouldn't be enough time to go through the six years' worth of policy in a few days.
Also opposing the Senate plan is the banking industry, which objects to a provision that would reduce dividends to banks from the Federal Reserve.
Five financial industry groups made their objections clear to the Senate measure in a letter to Senate leaders obtained Tuesday by Bloomberg News.
They, along with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, oppose the Senate's plan to help fund the highway bill by reducing the 6 percent dividend paid by the Fed to member banks.
It would be cut to 1.5 percent for banks with more than $1 billion in assets, which is expected to generate more than $16 billion for the highway fund.
Information for this article was contributed by Billy House, Jeff Plungis, Angela Greiling Keane and Kathleen Miller of Bloomberg News and by Jonathan Mattise, Erica Werner, Laurie Kellman and Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press.
A Section on 07/25/2015