Senate Modifies, Passes Highway Funding Patch

House lawmakers will have to soon decide whether to accept the Senate’s modifications to a highway funding patch it passed earlier this month.

While the legislation itself sailed through the upper chamber, Senators also voted to change the way it paid for road, bridge and transit programs, and for how long.

Senators first voted in favor of an amendment authored by House Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) that would alter the funding offsets for the bill, and also in support of another that would truncate the funding patch so it would last only through the end of this year.

Senators Tom Carper (D-DE) and Bob Corker (R-TN) both discussed their support for such an amendment on the chamber’s floor late Tuesday.

Those two votes were significant victories for Senators Carper and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the Environment and Public Works chair, who are working to shepherd a six-year reauthorization measure for federal highway programs through Congress by year’s end.

As passed by the House earlier this month, the legislation would have sustained federal surface transportation spending through May. But by insisting on a shorter timeline, Boxer and other supporters of her long-term highway authorization – approved unanimously by her committee in April – have helped ensure the legislation will get attention before the 113th Congress wraps up its legislative work at the end of this year.

Rejected by the Senate were two Republican-authored amendments: one that would have devolved most federal highway back to the states and another that would have exempted roads and bridges that were being rebuilt after a natural disaster from environmental reviews. Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) voiced his support of the former late Tuesday on the Senate floor.

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