The Senate on Thursday cleared a transportation extension to keep highway and transit programs running through October, sending the bill to the president’s desk just days before current authority is set to expire.
The patch, which extends authority through Oct. 29 but replenishes the Highway Trust Fund into December, cleared the upper chamber via a 91-4 vote. The House passed the measure Wednesday.
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“We all want the House to have the space it needs to develop its own bill because we all want to work out the best possible legislation for the American people in a conference later this year,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
The three-month extension is just the latest in a long line of punts Congress has relied on to keep programs running since 2009, funneling more than $73 billion into the Highway Trust Fund to cover shortfalls in gas tax receipts.
The House had initially passed a five-month extension and made clear the Senate’s multiyear bill wouldn’t receive a vote in the lower chamber. But McConnell was insistent on pushing a multiyear bill through the Senate in an effort to avoid revisiting the issue in December.
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Hours before the extension vote, the Senate passed its bipartisan bill, a multiyear proposal that will be the upper chamber’s starting point for fall negotiations with the House.
