Senate moves to negotiate final roads bill

The Senate voted Tuesday to sit down with House negotiators in a bid to polish off Congress’ first long-term highway bill in a decade.

Facing a Nov. 20 deadline to keep projects moving, lawmakers voted, 82-7, to join conferees from the opposite chamber, easily overcoming complaints that its authors relied on “tricks” to pay for just half of the bill’s six years of policy.

“We have let a great opportunity pass us by,” Sen. Tom Carper, Delaware Democrat, said.

The House approved its version of the $325 billion bill last week, authorizing six years of road and transit projects while paying for just the first three years’ worth, as Speaker Paul Ryan allowed considered of more than 100 amendments and passed his first major test as speaker.

Senators passed a different version in July, and the two sides now must meet to hammer out a compromise along with the White House, which has called for even more funding to fix crumbling bridges and neglected roads.

The Senate also voted, 56-31, on Tuesday to instruct the conference to take up a measure by Sens. Roger Wicker, Mississippi Republican, and Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, that says states don’t have to allow trucks with double 33-foot trailers on their roads until the federal government finishes a safety study on the imposing vehicles.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, swiftly named Environmental and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe of Oklahoma and six other Republicans to the bicameral conference.

The template they will rely on uses revenue from the federal gas tax and a mix of other fees and cuts the Senate cobbled together when it passed its own highway bill in July.

Some have accused the GOP-led chamber of using gimmicks to fund half the bill instead of paying for it the old-fashioned way — by raising the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal gas tax.

Democrats say the tax is overdue for an update and it would be sound policy, as it is a “user fee” on people who use the roads.

Mr. Carper also said it was foolhardy for the bill’s drafters to siphon off Transportation Safety Administration fees that are typically reinvested in border security, and to sell off barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for about half of what the government paid for them.

And he singled out the use of Federal Reserve capital that was designated for the Treasury, anyway —something former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke criticized in his blog for the Brookings Institution.

“We’re going to take that money away from the Federal Reserve and pretend like it has no consequence,” Mr. Carper said. “Well, actually, that $50 billio or $60 billion would reduce the deficit. That’s where it would have gone.”

Congress hasn’t passed a multi-year highway bill since 2005. That one expired in 2009, and Congress has passed a series of short-term extensions since then.

The latest patch expires Nov. 20, so Congress is scrambling to complete its multi-year bill by Thanksgiving and give states the assurance they need to conduct long-range planning.

“I wish I could sit here and way that it’s all going to work out and we’ll do just fine,” Mr. Carper said. “But that ain’t the truth.”