House Leader Rules out Senate Version of Highway Bill

But that was only after senior Senate Republicans publicly rebuked Texas GOP Sen. Opposition to the bank comes from House Republicans who say subsidizing exports is corporate welfare, ineffective and that the bank is rife with cronyism.

The new plan came after the first attempt failed during a rare Sunday session, when Lee supported an amendment put forward by McConnell that would have led to a repeal on the Affordable Care Act.

None of them mentioned Cruz by name but the target of their remarks could not have been clearer. The Senate was expected to vote later Monday to add legislation reviving the bank to the highway bill, despite furious opposition from presidential candidate Sen. If last weekend’s feud between senators Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell is any indication, Trump’s rise is also stretching the fabric of the US Senate. Of couse, the army of Washington lobbyists, from the AFL-CIO, to road builders and the civil engineers (who say that hundreds of billions of dollars more need to be spent) are pulling a full court press to get the money deal done.

If the House does leave Washington Thursday without taking up the Senate’s highway bill, that would mean the Export-Import Bank stays dead, at least until the fall, because the House version of the bill does not include it.

He said he agreed with Hatch’s calls for civility but declared, “Speaking the truth about actions is entirely consistent with civility”. He backed McConnell’s procedural maneuvers that stifled a Cruz amendment on Iran.

“At the same time, I would note that it is entirely consistent with decorum, and with the nature of this body traditionally as the world’s greatest deliberative body, to speak the truth”, he added.

Around 20 senators of both parties were on the floor watching some of the speeches.

And just like that, Cruz was done on the Senate floor. According to RealClearPolitics’ polling average, Cruz bottomed out at 4 percent support earlier this month but has risen back to 5.7 percent. In May, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., infuriated fellow Republicans when he forced the temporary expiration of the Patriot Act when it was up for renewal. “There are thousands of jobs at stake in Connecticut, and it’s time for the Republican war on the bank to end”, the senator said.

The U.S. bank’s charter expired on June 30, and business groups worry that American companies will be less competitive globally unless Congress revives the institution.

Spending authority for the Federal Aviation Administration expires September 30. The Export-Import Bank survived the cuts on a vote of 67-26. But the senate voted 49-43 to kill the health care measure, and McConnell’s motion fell short of the 60-vote threshold.

“There have been 33 short-term patches for the highway bill and that makes it nearly impossible for states to plan, in particular when it comes to long term projects like bridges, roads and highways”, Cornyn said.

McCarthy said there was simply not enough time before the recess to consider the complex Senate bill, which authorizes $350 billion in spending over six years, but contains actual funding for only about three years’ worth of projects.

Senate GOP leaders had hoped the House would pass the long-term bill and send it to the White House before the recess.