The U.S. Congress is moving closer to passing a new transportation authorization bill.
Both the House and Senate have passed highway bills that contain at least three years of guaranteed transportation funding, but lawmakers are still debating a potential bicameral agreement on the disparate measures. The highway bill that was approved by the House calls for spending up to $261 billion on highways and $55 billion on transit over six years. The legislation authorizes highway funding for six years, but only includes enough money to pay for the first three years. The Senate passed a similar piece of legislation that also contained three years' worth of guaranteed highway funding. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated it will take about $100 billion, in addition to the annual gas tax revenue, to pay for a six-year transportation funding bill.
According to The Hill.com news outlet, lawmakers had hoped to be able to get a multiyear highway bill to President Obama’s desk by Thanksgiving, but the goal has now been moved to the first week of December. In the meantime, President Obama has signed into law a bill that extends federal transportation funding through December 4, as the current authorization was set to expire last week. The Department of Transportation had warned that it would have had to stop making payments to states and local governments for infrastructure projects in November if Congress did not reach an agreement on at least a temporary transportation funding extension by last Friday.
Read more through the following recent articles:
http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/260884-obama-signs-two-week-highway-bill
https://www.transportation.gov/fastlane/defining-success-congress-advances-long-term-transportation-bill
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/congress-moves-a-step-closer-to-passing-transportation-bill/2015/11/18/86bcb648-8df8-11e5-ae1f-af46b7df8483_story.html