Senate Continues to Move Highway Program Extension – No House Action

The Senate Banking and Commerce Committees have joined the Environment and Public Works Committee in approving legislation to extend highway and transit program spending authorization through March 2011. Still to act is the Finance Committee, which must provide the revenue needed to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent for the next eighteen months. Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has introduced legislation that would transfer $27 billion from the general fund to the Highway Trust Fund. That legislation, once approved by the committee, will be consolidated with the 18-month authorization provisions and considered by the Senate sometime before its summer recess begins. No legislation to provide an authorization extension has been introduced in the House. Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) asked the Ways and Means Committee today to instead provide a $3 billion general fund transfer to the HTF to allow FHWA to continue to reimburse states through the end of the fiscal year. Chairman Oberstar would prefer to enact a six-year authorization bill when the House returns from the summer recess and believes an 18-month extension will undermine those efforts.