Senators OK road-fund fix

2nd approved highway bill revives Export-Import Bank

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tells reporters after Thursday’s vote that the House likely would take up a Senate-passed six-year highway funding bill after the August recess.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tells reporters after Thursday’s vote that the House likely would take up a Senate-passed six-year highway funding bill after the August recess.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate passed the 34th stopgap highway funding bill in the past six years to fund roads, bridges and mass transit for three months so Congress can negotiate later over a long-term plan.

Senators voted 91-4 Thursday for the measure, which would extend highway spending authority through Oct. 29, and it now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature. Arkansas' Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton, both Republicans, voted in favor of the extension.

The votes against the bill came from Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee, Mike Lee of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, all Republicans.

The House passed the bill Wednesday before leaving for an August recess. Current highway spending authority had been set to expire at midnight today.

Earlier Thursday, the Senate passed a separate, long-term highway funding measure that also would revive the U.S. Export-Import Bank, whose charter expired June 30. Boozman voted for the long-term extension; Cotton voted against.

"The multiyear nature of this legislation is one of its most critical components," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Thursday. "It's also something the House and Senate are now united on."

After both Republican-controlled chambers return in September, McConnell of Kentucky and House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio say lawmakers will negotiate on a long-term highway funding plan.

"The staffs are working together as we speak," said Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Boozman said in a statement that the House and Senate should be able to agree on a long-term solution.

"Arkansas and other states cannot and should not have to rely on short-term funding that fails to provide certainty for important infrastructure improvements. I am confident that we can come to an agreement to pass a long-term solution in the coming months," Boozman said.

The last time Congress passed a highway funding measure that covered more than two years was 2005.

"The challenge now on the highway bill is trying to divine the opinion of the Republican leadership, because you've got the Republicans in the Senate one way and the Republicans in the House the other," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in an interview.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Thursday, "The real problem is that House Republicans have skipped town and started their vacation even though they have a lot of important work to do."

The three-month plan, HR3236, would provide $6 billion for highways and $2 billion for mass transit financed mostly by tightening tax compliance rules.

Before the vote, some senators expressed dismay that they were approving another short-term solution.

"None of these important policies will get done if Congress just kicks this can down the road," said Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said passing only a short-term measure was already having an impact on the highway construction business and putting hundreds of thousands out of work.

"In 25 states we are seeing layoffs of construction workers because of the fact that we are not doing a long-term bill," she said.

The short-term extension for highway funding also included $3.4 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is facing a budget shortfall that the department says stems from an increased demand for its services. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said an overhaul, not merely more money, was needed at the VA.

"This crisis must stop, and Congress cannot be expected to continue to bail out the VA because of mismanagement and management malpractice," Blumenthal said.

Long-term plan

The long-term Senate bill, passed 65-34 Thursday, would provide a six-year, $350 billion blueprint for infrastructure spending while paying for three of those years.

That measure, HR22, would shore up the federal Highway Trust Fund for the first three years by using about $45 billion in revenue increases and making spending cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.

Third-ranking Senate Democrat Charles Schumer of New York, who voted against the Senate plan, said it was still "too early to tell" how highway legislation will fare after negotiations with the House.

House members have expressed strong reservations about its funding provisions.

"We want as long-term a highway bill as we can get and we'll have to figure out the right path -- and Ex-Im, it's very important to many of us," Schumer said in an interview.

McConnell told reporters after the vote that the House would take up the long-term measure after the recess and the two chambers would then work out their differences.

"They intend to do it in early September; we'll go to conference," he said. "The goal of the conference obviously will be to get a result."

The largest source of funds in the long-term bill is $16 billion that would be saved by reducing to 1.5 percent the 6 percent dividend rate the Federal Reserve pays to large banks, a cut the banking industry opposes.

That proposal is one reason the Senate Banking Committee's Republican chairman, Richard Shelby of Alabama, and its top Democrat, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, both oppose the bill.

"Some of the pay-fors bother me," Brown said in an interview Wednesday. "Small banks will contribute to this instead of it being a transportation bill funded by transportation. There are safety concerns as well; it's really all of it."

The Senate measure would revive the 81-year-old Export-Import Bank, which has been unable to approve new applications for loans, guarantees and insurance since its charter expired June 30.

Export-Import, renewed without controversy for decades, is opposed by conservative Republicans who say it benefits only a few large corporations that don't need government assistance.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a former chief vote-counter in the House, said he was confident Export-Import's renewal would withstand negotiations with the House over highway funding legislation.

"Any time you have something that substantially more than 60 senators and a majority of the House members want, it is highly likely that it gets done," Blunt said in an interview. "I would expect that to be the case with Ex-Im."

Large manufacturers including Chicago-based Boeing and Fairfield, Conn.-based General Electric, have said the lapse in the bank's charter puts them at risk of losing sales to competitors in Europe, Brazil, Japan and China who can get government-backed financing.

The bank is backed by business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as a vital resource for firms to stay competitive abroad. The bank provides financing for foreign firms buying U.S. goods -- primarily airplanes from Boeing, but also other products from smaller firms.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is running for president, has made closing the bank a top issue, and in a fiery dust-up earlier in the week, Cruz claimed McConnell had lied to senators by allowing a vote to reauthorize the bank.

While the bank provision had been attached to the Senate's transportation bill, it was not included in the stopgap compromise measure now headed to the White House.

Reaching a deal on transportation funding has proved difficult. The federal 18-cent-a-gallon gas tax has not been increased since 1993 and no longer covers the cost of the transportation program as Americans drive less and buy more fuel-efficient cars. Republicans have refused to consider raising the tax.

In devising a new funding stream, the long-term bill encourages states to impose user fees on electric vehicles because they use roadways but don't contribute to federal gas tax revenue.

The long-term bill also would:

• Double the amount the government can fine automakers who don't disclose safety defects from $35 million to $70 million.

• Prohibit the rental of cars with unrepaired safety defects and proposes that dealers run a recall check when customers get routine service.

• Speed up environmental reviews of construction projects and set aside money for major projects and direct highway aid to major freight transportation corridors, starting with $1.5 billion in fiscal 2016 and increasing to $2.5 billion in 2021.

• Force the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to conceal from the public its safety ratings of trucking companies; the trucking industry has said the agency's methodology is flawed.

In the fall, the Senate will be taking up several issues that are even more complicated, such as the debt ceiling and funding of the government itself.

Twelve annual spending bills face a Sept. 30 deadline. Congress must also decide whether to approve or disapprove President Barack Obama's Iran nuclear deal, and whether to pass a contentious defense policy bill that faces a veto threat from the White House. Another fight is certain over raising the nation's borrowing authority.

Also, spending authority for the Federal Aviation Administration expires Sept. 30. Since long-term bills to set aviation policy have yet to be introduced in either the House or the Senate, lawmakers acknowledge they will have to pass short-term extensions there as well.

Information for this article was contributed by Kathleen Miller, Billy House and Jeff Plungis of Bloomberg News; by Andrew Siddons of The New York Times; by Joan Lowy of The Associated Press; by Lisa Mascaro of Tribune News Service; and by Sarah Wire of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A Section on 07/31/2015

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