Senate to try to pass 30-day highway bill Saturday after GOP objection

[babylonsister]

TheHill.com
Senate to try to pass 30-day highway bill Saturday after GOP objection
By Jordain Carney - 10/01/21 08:56 PM EDT


The Senate will reconvene on Saturday to try to pass a short-term extension of federal highway programs after a GOP roadblock prevented what was expected to be a glide path to President Biden’s desk.

The Senate was on standby for hours Friday with the expectation that it would try to quickly approve a 30-day extension once the stopgap bill passed the House, where it cleared in a 365-51 vote on Friday night.

But Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), appearing on the Senate floor as the House was voting, indicated that they didn’t yet have buy-in from all 100 senators. The Senate largely left town on Thursday, but any one senator can still prevent the highway funding patch from being sent to Biden quickly.

“It is my understanding that the House is going to send the Senate a 30-day extension of the Surface Transportation Authorization Act. Republicans cannot clear it tonight. Therefore, we will come back tomorrow and try to pass it then,” Wyden said.

The Senate will reconvene at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday. Aides didn’t immediately respond to questions about the hold up, but without consent the bill could be dragged out for days.

more...

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/574993-senate-to-try-to-pass-30-day-highway-bill-saturday-after-gop-objection

[Ron Green]

1. No new highways, no new roads at all.

Maintain what we have to, and tear up what we can.

Maybe this failure of the extension can be a starting point for a new direction.