House, Senate clash over highway bill ahead of deadline

WASHINGTON — House Republicans rebuffed their Senate counterparts Monday over must-pass highway legislation, setting the two chambers on a collision course days ahead of a crucial deadline amid the summer driving season.

As House members convened for their final days of work before an annual August recess, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., ruled out taking up the Senate’s highway bill, which is headed for completion in the next several days. “We’re not taking up the Senate bill,” he told reporters at the Capitol, adding that the Senate should instead act on the bill the House already passed. “My best advice to the Senate is to get our highway bill moved forward,” he said.

The House bill is a fivemonth extension of current programs, while the Senate’s version authorizes $350 billion in transportation programs for six years, though only three of those are paid for.

Authority for federal highway aid payments to states will expire Friday at midnight without action. At the same time, if Congress doesn’t act before then, the federal Highway Trust Fund balance is forecast to drop below a minimum cushion of $4 billion that is necessary to keep aid flowing smoothly to states.

House Republican leaders say their approach would buy them time to try to fashion a tax reform deal coveted by the White House and some leaders in both parties, and use that to pay for an evenlonger-term highway bill.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, RKy., has said publicly and privately that such a deal will be all but impossible to achieve. He wants to move legislation now to dispense with the highway issue at least through next year’s elections, give certainty to states and avoid repeated fights over the issue. “Time is running out to get this bill through Congress. We’re up against a deadline at the end of week,” Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor. “Jobs are on the line. Important infrastructure projects are too.”

Despite the dispute between the two chambers, there’s little expectation that Congress would let the Friday deadline slip by without action, given pressure from state and local transportation agencies, the construction industry and others. But how the issue will be resolved is unclear. One possibility is an even-shorter-term extension of two months or so, which Mr. McCarthy was careful not to rule out.

Already the highway bill has become the vehicle for troublesome political fights over other issues, including the federal Export-Import Bank, a little-known lending agency that is hotly opposed by conservatives and was allowed to expire June 30. The Senate was expected to vote later Monday to add legislation reviving the bank to the highway bill, despite furious opposition from presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, RTexas, who accused Mr. McConnell of lying to him over the issue.

If the House does leave Washington on Thursday without taking up the Senate’s highway bill, that would mean the Export-Import Bank stays dead, at least until the fall, because the House version of the bill does not include it. But Mr. McConnell is just as reluctant to take up the House’s highway legislation, and the Senate version’s authors took to the Senate floor Monday to urge Mr. McCarthy and House members to relent and act on theirs.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, DCalif., who has bucked many in her party by collaborating on the bill with Mr. Inhofe and GOP leaders, urged the House to postpone its recess and take up the Senate bill. “I know you want to get out of town; everybody does. It’s August, and we have plans,” she said.

“But you know what, we’re staying [in the Senate] an extra week in August, you [in the House] can stay an extra week in August. That’s not such a terrible thing.”