House votes to keep highway spending level, ignores warnings

WASHINGTON -- Despite years of warnings the nation's roads, bridges and transit systems are falling apart and will bring nightmarish congestion, the House on Thursday passed a six-year transportation bill that maintains the spending status quo.

The bill, approved on a bipartisan vote of 363-64, authorizes $325 billion in spending through the 2021 federal budget year. But it provides money for only the first three years because lawmakers couldn't agree on a way to pay for it all. The measure would continue current rates of spending, adjusted for inflation.

The bill is similar to a transportation bill passed by the Senate in July. Congressional leaders said they hope to work out the differences between the two measures quickly and send President Barack Obama a final bill before Thanksgiving. They also said they hope to find the money to pay for the last three years of the bill.

Most lawmakers lauded the bill as a major accomplishment because it would assure states and localities they can count on federal highway and transit aid for at least three years.

Since 2008, Congress has kept the federal Highway Trust Fund teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, unwilling to raise the federal 18.4-cents-a-gallon gasoline and 24.4-cent diesel taxes.

The fuel taxes, the trust fund's main source of revenue, last were raised in 1993.