Highways, Bridges and Roads

“We should be able to do it quickly. It all depends on the cooperation of senators," Reid said.

The bill includes two tax and fee measures. One, supported by business groups, is called "pension smoothing."

Ahead of Friday's vote, conservative groups told lawmakers they will hold votes in favor of the bill against them.

The Senate adjourned Thursday evening without voting on three major pieces of legislation with fast approaching deadlines.

Reid says GOP should be focused on transportation and student loans, not Holder.

House Democrats have not signed off on an agreement between their chamber and the Senate on a new $105 billion transportation spending bill.

A member of the 47-lawmaker conference committee, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), told reporters that Democrats found objections to the agreement as it was drafted into legislation (H.R. 4348) early Thursday morning.

"I'm not aware of any Democrats signing it," DeFazio said before a House vote Thursday afternoon. "There are objections to details in the bill I think are unnecessary."

The agreement reached by lawmakers this week on a $105 billion surface transportation bill is a "bad bill for biking and walking," a bicycle advocacy group said Wednesday.

The America Bikes coalition said the agreement that was negotiated by the House and Senate after a two-month conference would cut funding for biking and pedestrian programs by 60 to 70 percent because it would allow states to opt out of spending money in the highway bill on things other than roads and transit.

Democrats on the conference committee framed the opt-out provision of giving more control over bike and pedestrian funding to local governments, but America Bikes argued Thursday that the compromise "allows states to opt-out of half of the funds potentially available for small-scale biking and walking projects.

"Whereas the bipartisan Senate bill allowed local governments and planning entities to compete for 1 percent of transportation funds, the new bill allows states to opt-out of the local grant program completely," the coalition said in a post on its website.

The National Flood Insurance Program extension that was crammed into the highway funding and student loan compromise legislation late on Wednesday has left some senators fuming.

The bill does not reflect a tentative compromise on amendments worked out in the Senate.

An environmental group said Thursday that the agreement reached by lawmakers on a $105 billion surface transportation bill made "unacceptable changes to landmark environmental protections and wastes taxpayer dollars by ignoring environmental impacts that could be avoided."

In a deal painstakingly negotiated over two months, the House and Senate agreed on a transportation bill that accepted several Republican proposals to weaken Environmental Protection Agency regulations they argued had been gridlocking construction projects.

Negotiators also jettisoned a provision in the Senate's original version of the transportation bill that would have provided money for the land and water conservation trust fund, much to the chagrin of the Washington, D.C.-based Wilderness Society.

“The highway bill is meant to be about the infrastructure of the nation. Leaving the Land and Water Conservation Fund in a roadside ditch means we are not investing in our environmental infrastructure,” Wilderness Society Director of Legislative Policy David Moulton said in a statement. 

The conservative website RedState.com said Thursday that the agreement reached by lawmakers on a $105 billion surface transportation bill was "a massive increase in federal gluttony."

Lawmakers in both political parties have praised the agreement, which will provide transportation funding through the end of fiscal year 2014, for maintaining current spending levels for road and transit projects, adjusted for inflation.

But RedState Editor Erick Erickson said in a blog post Thursday the new highway bill would "expand government, government spending, and engage in Keynesian economic policies [Republicans have] criticized Barack Obama for."

"The Republicans decided to drop demands for approving the Keystone XL pipeline and demands that the EPA stop its ridiculous regulations on coal plants that will harm our energy future," Erickson wrote. "In exchange, Democrats will not fund bike paths and highway landscaping."