Lawmakers approved a bill to extend federal transportation funding for three weeks in the hopes of buying time to complete work on a long-sought multiyear infrastructure package.
The temporary measure will prevent a shutdown in infrastructure funding on Thursday - pending President Obama's signature by midnight - but transportation funding supporters are already turning their eyes to the next deadline in the hopes of winning a longer victory next month.
"Our country needs a consensus-based, bipartisan, long-term surface transportation bill that will provide states and local communities the funding and certainty to plan and construct multi-year projects to modernize our infrastructure," Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said in a joint statement after the Senate approved the temporary highway funding patch.
"We are pleased that the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee advanced a six-year surface transportation bill last week and that the bill is slated to be considered on the House floor next week," Inhofe and Boxer continued. "It is time for the House and Senate to get to conference so that we can work out our differences and get the job done now. There are no excuses for further delay.”
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