House Ways and Mean Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) urged the Senate to pass the House’s $8 billion highway funding extension without issue or objection.
The House approved a five-month deal, which lasts until December, in an effort to avoid including an extension of the Export-Import Bank’s charter in the new version of the highway bill and buy more time to come up with a long-term highway funding plan.
Ryan said after the temporary patch was approved on a 312-119 vote in the House that the Senate should follow suit and send the lower chamber back a clean highway funding extension.
"The House has now taken the first step to providing the stability and predictability that our highway program needs," Ryan said in a statement.
"This plan gives us our best opportunity to produce and pass a long-term bill to rebuild America’s roads, bridges, and other infrastructure this year," Ryan continued.
"This is the right approach, and the Senate should move quickly to adopt this extension — without any unrelated measures — so that we can provide some certainty and get to work on a multi-year plan."
The U.S. DOT admonished that its Highway Trust Fund will fall below a mandatory critical level of $4 billion come July 31.
