Transport Bill Deal Nears As Another Stopgap Is Enacted
In a floor statement around midnight on June 30 listing House of Representatives accomplishments, Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said that congressional conferees laboring to produce a multi-year transportation bill had come to a bipartisan and bicameral agreement to move that bill forward.
Those negotiators appeared to have settled on a financial outline for a new multi-year measure. The most important element of the framework is a $286.5-billion highway-transit obligation limit. But as Congress began its July 4 break, a detailed final bill was far from wrapped up. That forced yet another extension to continue the flow of highway and transit aid. The latest stopgap, which President Bush signed into law on July 1, carries funding through July 19. It is the eighth extension since the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century lapsed on Sept. 30, 2003. The previous extension expired at the close of June 30.