WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 2015 - On Monday,
the House passed an extension of highway funding through Dec. 4, which could
potentially be the last short-term extension before a multiyear bill is sent to
the president’s desk.
With the Thanksgiving holiday
thrown in, the extension (H.R.
3996), which still needs Senate approval,
would give the two chambers basically one additional workweek to agree on a
long-term bill. On Tuesday, Senate Commerce Committee chair John Thune, R-S.D.,
said the chamber would likely pass the extension and figured the additional days
would give conferees enough time to produce a long-term bill. Two
transportation experts who spoke with Agri-Pulse last week agreed that
the most important thing that can come out of highway bill talks is long-term
certainty.
“When it comes to transportation,
I’d rather the federal government be predictably good than sporadically great,”
Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition, told Agri-Pulse.
National Grain and Feed Association President Randy Gordon said once the two
chambers come together they could make quick work in producing a bill.
“I don’t think there’s much of an
appetite in either the House or Senate to continue to have these short-term
extensions,” he said. “There’s a lot of commonality on the two bills.”
Conferees from the two chambers,
who are scheduled to hold their first meeting this morning, need to address the
differences between the two bills, primarily with regards to funding. When the
House passed
its long-term version of the bill Nov. 5, Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the ranking
Democrat on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the
legislation “doesn’t provide the level of investment needed” for proper repairs
and new construction and that Congress needed to do “the right thing” and come
up with more revenue.
Gordon told Agri-Pulse that amid all the discussions on government spending,
highway funding is “a legitimate function of government.” Steenhoek said he
hopes to see the long-term solution that has been in the works for so long come
to fruition before the end of the year.
“The concern is that if they
delay too much longer, they’re going to find themselves in an election year,”
Steenhoek said. “We all know that in Congress, very little happens in
odd-numbered years, but even less happens in even-numbered years, particularly
if it’s a presidential election year, so this is something that needs to be
resolved and it needs to be resolved quickly.”
#30
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