ROADS/BRIDGES: Senate still wants to pass multiyear highway bill in 2014

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wants Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) to send over some bullet points.

Boxer has been asking the House Ways and Means chairman for a list of ways to beef up the Highway Trust Fund so Congress could pass a multiyear highway bill before the end of the year. In her latest letter to Camp, Boxer stated she hand-delivered her ideas to the lawmaker and had yet to hear a response.

Camp is in favor of a long-term highway bill, but his term will expire at the end of the year. His proposal involves an overhaul of corporate taxes, similar to the one proposed by President Obama and the plan House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was touting last week. The House, however, seems contempt to attack a plan in 2015. The Democratic-led Senate wants to see something before this year comes to a close.

“The longer we wait to find a long-term funding solution for our critical infrastructure the worse it will be,” Boxer said in her last letter to Camp. “We cannot afford to wait for action until the deadline, which falls at the beginning of the critical summer construction season, or to kick the can down the road any longer.”

Boxer’s “deadline” is when the latest MAP-21 funding extension will expire.