Highways, Bridges and Roads

Instead of approving the multi-year bill that passed the Senate, lawmakers adopted a temporary extension funding road and transit projects.

The White House said Friday that President Obama was "pleased" with the extension of federal transportation funding he signed, even as it continued pushing Congress to approve a long-term highway bill. 

Obama on Friday signed a 90-day extension of the current legislation that funds road and transit projects before he departed Washington for a campaign event in Vermont.

The president had encouraged Congress to send him a two-year, $109 billion version of the transportation bill that had been approved instead, but White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama was happy with the measure.

"The President was pleased that Congress acted to prevent construction workers from having to go off the job because of a lapse in funding," Earnest said during a gaggle with reporters. "So he was pleased to sign the 90-day extension today. However, we encourage Congress to act in a bipartisan fashion on a longer-term extension."

The three-month transportation measure averts an interruption in funding that would have started on Saturday.

The Senate approved the extension of federal highway funding that was passed by the House on Thursday, accepting a short-term solution leaders in the chamber vehemently opposed.

The measure, H.R 4281, now goes to President Obama. It extends the current funding for road and transit projects until June 30, the ninth such continuance of the last multiyear highway authorization that was approved by Congress, which expired in 2009.

Even as they were approving the measure in an anticlimactic voice vote, Democrats sharply criticized Republicans for not accepting a two-year, $109 billion version of the transportation measure the Senate had approved on a bipartisan vote earlier this month.

"If the House had a bill, this would be a negotiation between two bills," Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said during debate on the temporary extension on the Senate floor.

"The problem is they don't have a bill," Landrieu continued. "They have ideas, they have speeches, they have platforms, but they don't have a bill. We couldn't negotiate with them even if we wanted to." 

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A pair of union leaders sharply criticized the House for passing a short-term extension of federal transportation funding Thursday instead of taking up a multi-year bill that had been approved by the Senate. 

Sen. Barbara Boxer (R-Calif.), a chief author of the Senate's hard-won $109 billion transportation funding bill, said on Thursday she intends to attempt to replace House Republicans' 90-day extension with that legislation when it arrives in the upper chamber later in the day.

Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) defended House Republicans on Thursday for eschewing a multiyear transportation bill approved by the Senate in favor of a three-month temporary extension of current funding.

Mica, who is chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said it usually takes more time to win support for a longer-term highway spending bill. 

"It almost always takes two years to do a transportation bill, and I've been at it for 14 months," he told reporters after the House voted 266-158 to approve a 90-day extension of the current legislation that provides funding for transportation. 

"I think there is progress we've made," Mica said. "I am very pleased with the outcome today." 

The House on Thursday approved an extension of highway funding legislation, but one House Democrat called the process a “soap opera.”

Democrats, including Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), were angry that Republicans pushed through a 90-day extension rather than taking up the Senate bill, which proposed a longer authorization period. McGovern tweeted Thursday, during the debate over the extension on the House Floor, that the debate reminded him of a soap opera. All it needed, he proposed, was an absurd plot “twist.”

Floor debate on the Transportation Bill. What a soap opera, all written by the GOP. I’m waiting for the mysterious twin brother to show up.

— Rep. Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) March 29, 2012

The White House signaled to Senate Democrats that it was OK to accept a short-term extension of federal transportation funding passed Thursday by the House, even as it criticized Republicans for punting on a long-term bill.

After debating the length of a short-term extension for most of the week, the House approved an extension of the current legislation that provides funding for road and transit projects on a 266-158 vote. The extension, which lawmakers in both chambers said initially they did not want to have to do, is the ninth of the transportation legislation that expired in 2009.

The White House said Thursday it was "not enough for us to continue to patch together our nation’s infrastructure future with short-term Band-Aids."

But the administration added that it was "critical that we not put American jobs and safety at risk and hurt our economic recovery by allowing funding to run out."

The measure extends current funding for road and transit projects until June 30, the ninth such short-term continuance since 2009.