Senate negotiators reach agreement on 6-year highway bill

The legislation could also face resistance in the House, which passed a short-term extension of highway funding last week.

Hillary Clinton fired back at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday after he accused her of playing the “gender card” during her presidential campaign.

The bill is a six-year authorization, although lawmakers were only able to cobble together enough money to fund the first three years. “I believe it is a breakthrough”, said Senator Barbara Boxer of California, who led Democrats in negotiating the legislative package.

But McConnell’s counterpart in the Senate, Minority Leader Harry Reid, said: “Based on my conversations with the Democrats in the House (of Representatives) and their conversations with Republican leaders, I don’t think there’s a chance in the world they’re going to take up this bill”.

But McConnell said late Tuesday he hoped that the House would be happy with the bipartisan bill the Senate is working on and consider passing it before leaving town for the August recess.

Later, McConnell told reporters the lack of comments about this year’s top-of-the-ticket election in Kentucky wasn’t a slight toward GOP nominee Matt Bevin, his one-time rival. Lawmakers came up with $9 billion of the total by agreeing to sell 101 million barrels of oil from the nation’s emergency stockpile over a seven-year period through fiscal 2025. Democrats, meanwhile, could try to add in auto-safety provisions rejected by the Senate Commerce Committee.

Democrats couldn’t say how much time they would need to study the 1030 page bill before beginning formal debate but McConnell said he hoped to vote again Wednesday to begin debate. Without an infusion of cash, the balance in the federal Highway Trust Fund is forecast to drop below $4 billion – the minimum cushion needed to keep money flowing to states without interruption – by the end of the month. He said “everyone” wants to pass a long-term bill, but a better bill might be achieved with more time. The uncertainty over federal aid has caused several states to delay or shelve transportation projects. The vote, which comes just 10 days before the July 31 deadline for replenishing the Highway Trust Fund, is seen as a big deal because Congress has passed a series of 34 temporary extensions since a 2005 measure expired in 2009.