Stopgap Bill Could Restore Transportation Programs Frozen by Vote Delay

Politics|A stopgap measure could revive proscription programs and extremity furloughs caused by the voting delay.

• Oct. 1, 2021, 3:57 p.m. ET

Lawmakers are readying a stopgap measure that could revive cardinal aboveground proscription programs that lapsed connected Thursday and bring backmost astir 4,000 furloughed workers portion enactment leaders negociate a mode to walk a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan.

While Congress passed authorities connected Thursday to avert a lapse successful national backing astatine the extremity of the fiscal year, it did not code the existing proscription programs included successful the broader infrastructure measure President Biden and lawmakers negotiated this year. With the authorities delayed by heavy disputes wrong the Democratic caucus, the caller fiscal twelvemonth began connected Friday with those programs temporarily frozen and astir 3,700 workers furloughed.

Representative Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the president of the House Transportation Committee, told Democrats successful a backstage gathering connected Friday that helium had prepared authorities that would widen the programs for 30 days, according to 2 radical briefed connected the remarks.

There remains a accidental that it would not beryllium needed, if the bipartisan infrastructure authorities should pass. President Biden went to Capitol Hill connected Friday day to propulsion for a ballot successful a backstage gathering with House Democrats, and the Senate remained successful league connected Friday, with fewer senators physically present, and could instrumentality it up with unanimous consent from each 100 senators.

The Department of Transportation said that the medication was moving to swiftly reauthorize the frozen programs, and that payments to reimburse authorities and transit agencies for existing grants could let enactment to proceed uninterrupted.

Democratic leaders had utilized the fiscal twelvemonth deadline to unit rank-and-file lawmakers to enactment transition of the bipartisan measure connected Thursday, though they were yet unsuccessful. The measure would update and support the highway, transit and obstruction programs for 5 years, among different provisions.

Jim Tymon, the enforcement manager of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, called the inaction “disappointing” and “detrimental to our system and the prime of beingness of our communities.”