Infrastructure

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday that "clearly there's some movement" in negotiations in Congress about a new transportation spending bill.

Asked during a news conference for an update on the bicameral negotiations, which are coming down to the wire because of a June 30 deadline for the expiration of the current funding for road and transit projects, Boehner said lawmakers were "continuing to do our work" on the highway conference.

"I met with the the Republican conferees today on the highway bill. They've been heavily engaged," he said. "And clearly there's some movement that's been under way since the meeting I had with Sen. [Harry] Reid [D-Nev.] and Sen. [Barbara] Boxer [D-Calif.]." 

The House voted to instruct conferees on the highway bill to keep language in the House measure that would block the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) attempt to regulate coal ash.

Members voted 260-138 in favor of the motion to instruct, which was offered by Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.). The motion was debated Wednesday evening.

The White House threatened to veto a $51.6 billion budget for the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development that is being considered by Republicans in the House.

The House Appropriations Committee's Transportation, Housing and Urban Development budget for fiscal 2013 is $1.9 billion less than President Obama requested for transportation and housing earlier this year. It contains a $3.9 billion reduction for the department agencies from 2012 spending.

The White House said Thursday that the proposal violated the 2011 Budget Control Act.

"The BCA created a framework for more than $2 trillion in deficit reduction and provided tight spending caps that would bring discretionary spending to a minimum level needed to preserve critical national priorities," the White House said in a statement of administration policy. 

"Departing from the bipartisan agreement reached in the BCA and departing from these caps, the House of Representatives put forward a top-line discretionary funding level for fiscal 2013 that, for example, would cost jobs and hurt average Americans, especially seniors, veterans and children — as well as degrade many of the basic government services on which the American people rely, such as air traffic control and law enforcement," the statement continued. "In addition, these cuts were made in the context of a budget that fails the test of balance, fairness and shared responsibility by giving millionaires and billionaires a tax cut and paying for it through deep cuts, including to discretionary programs." 

The Senate will pass the farm bill Thursday, and the House will pass a Republican energy bill designed to encourage more domestic production.

The Senate meets at 10:30 a.m. and has eight more amendment votes to go on the farm bill, S. 3240, before voting on final passage. Remaining amendments include language that would require labeling of food made from genetically modified material and prevent the EPA from conducting aerial surveillance of farms.

A new sense of optimism percolated at transportation negotiations as the leaders of House-to-Senate talks resumed their work. 

The leaders are making a last-ditch effort to reach a transportation deal ahead of the June 30 deadline.

As lawmakers debate a new road and public transit spending bill, Republican leaders in the House unveiled on Wednesday a $51.6 billion budget for the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. 

The House Appropriations Committee said Wednesday that it will consider its Transportation, Housing and Urban Development budget for fiscal year 2013 in a subcommittee hearing Thursday. The draft of the proposal released Wednesday contains a $3.9 billion reduction for the agencies from 2012 spending and it is $1.9 billion less than President Obama requested for the departments earlier this year.

Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ala.) said his committee had to make "smart investments" in transportation and housing development.

"This bill targets taxpayer dollars where they can be best used to improve the reliability, safety, and efficiency of our transportation systems, while also holding the line on spending to help reduce the nation’s growing deficits,” Rogers said.

Conservative Democratic Rep. John Barrow has put forward a measure urging inclusion of the pipeline project in transportation legislation.

Republican lawmakers are pushing for inclusion of the pipeline but are signaling it won’t be non-negotiable.

A former Senate Democrat predicted Tuesday that President Obama will eventually approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, and suggested that election-year politics are preventing the project from moving forward.

“In my judgment, this pipeline will be built. The question is when is the decision made,” former Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said during an event hosted by the American Petroleum Institute, the powerful oil-industry group.

Dorgan said Obama punted a final decision on the pipeline because his liberal base, including environmental groups, opposes the project, which would carry oil sands crude from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

“I think we all understand that the president is reluctant to move forward because he has some supporters that are concerned about it,” he said.