Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that the full, five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill will likely be a lame duck issue — and that he would push to wrap it up before the 119th Congress concludes.
When asked by POLITICO when the House will hold a floor vote on the legislation, Johnson said, “We’re working on that” and pivoted to ding the Senate, saying the upper chamber “hasn’t made any movement towards it at all.”
But he added that the House is trying to work with the Senate and “hopefully it’s an exercise we get done in a lame duck.”
“I think that’s what everybody expects at this point, but we’ll have to see,” Johnson said.
“It is a big priority for us, there’s some great policy in there, and we’re gonna work aggressively to get it done” this year, he added.
The legislation, also known as the highway bill, authorizes funding for roads, bridges and transit. Both the House Transportation and Energy and Commerce committees in May approved their portions of the legislation. The current bill, the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, lapses Sept. 30.
The House is poised to clear a Senate-passed extension of the existing surface authorities later Tuesday, kicking the deadline from the end of September to Dec. 11. That gives Capitol Hill more time to attempt to pass a full reauthorization.
But lawmakers face numerous obstacles. The House Ways and Means Committee’s plans remain unclear. That panel has jurisdiction over the federal gas tax, which flows into the ailing Highway Trust Fund. The Senate, meanwhile, has yet to release text.
Passing the surface bill is a big priority for retiring House Transportation Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.).
Asked Tuesday about the timing of a full House vote, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told POLITICO that it’s dependent on what the tax-writing committee ends up doing.
“It’s still a negotiation and before the Ways and Means Committee,” he said. “There’s one final step before it goes to the floor, that’s Ways and Means. As soon as that’s over, then we will talk to the chairman, talk to our members and bring it forward.”
Scalise said he would like to hold a House floor vote on the legislation before year’s end.
“But again, we have to get it through the committee process,” he said.
A Ways and Means spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, though Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said in July that his panel was discussing the bill “pretty much daily.”
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