Wednesday: Highway in the House, postal reform in the Senate

The House meets at 10 a.m. for speeches, then at 1 p.m. for work on a few bills, plus a motion to proceed to conference on the highway funding bill, H.R. 4348.

The Senate approved its conferees on Tuesday, after rejecting the House's short-term extension of federal highway funding in favor of its own two-year bill. The House will have to pass a motion to go to conference with the Senate, and soon thereafter will name conferees.

House members will take up two other bills under a suspension of the rules. One is H.R. 2146, the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, or the DATA. This bill would require any entity that receives federal funds to report each quarter on the use of those funds, and impose other changes aimed at revealing how federal money is spent.

The other is H.R. 3336, the Small Business Credit Availability Act. This bill would amend the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform act by exempting small banks, credit unions and farm credit banks from regulations that are meant to be aimed at larger banks.

The House will vote on three land-use bills that were debated Tuesday before finishing up relatively early for a Wednesday.

The Senate returns at 9:30 a.m., and is still technically debating a motion to proceed to S. 1925, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act. But the Senate has already agreed to proceed to that bill as soon as it finishes the postal reform bill.

At 2 p.m., the Senate will pick up where it stopped on amendments to the postal bill, S. 1789. The Senate approved eight amendments to that bill on Tuesday, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he expects eight to 10 more roll call votes before the bill is done.

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