Stopgap 3-month transportation bill OKd

WASHINGTON -- Congress passed a three-month stopgap bill yesterday to keep highway and transit aid flowing and avoid a widespread shutdown of construction. The move pushes congressional action on a long-term overhaul of transportation programs deeper into an already fractious election year.

The House passed the extension by a mostly party-line vote of 266 to 158 after Republicans and Democrats traded verbal jabs over how best to prevent economic disruption.

The Senate followed just over three hours later, passing the measure by a voice vote over the objections of some Democrats who wanted to attach a long-term transportation plan to the extension and send it back to the House.

The House, which was to begin a two-week recess later yesterday, had given the Senate little choice -- the government's authority to spend money on transportation programs and levy federal fuel taxes expires Saturday, leaving no time for a tug-of-war between the two chambers.

The bill goes to the president for his signature.

Without action, Democrats estimated that as many as 1.8 million construction-related jobs were at risk as states are gearing up for the spring and summer construction season.

The government would also have lost about $110 million a day in uncollected gas and diesel taxes.

The last long-term transportation law expired in 2009, but programs have limped along under a series of short-term extensions, this one the ninth.

Congress has been struggling since even before that to find the money to maintain aging roads, bridges and transit systems, as well as accommodate future population growth. Two blue-ribbon federal commissions have predicted that without dramatic increases in transportation spending, the nation will face nightmarish congestion in coming decades.

The House vote capped an on-again, off-again struggle by GOP leaders to pass their own five-year transportation plan.