House bill would extend highway transit funding until end of July

A bill was introduced in the House today to extend the law enabling federal funding for highway and transit programs until the end of July. The current law was to expire at the end of this month.

In a joint statement, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said they would have preferred to extend the program until the end of 2015. However, the chamber needs to do more work to identify "offsets," or savings derived from existing funds, before it could agree to commit to a time period beyond the end of July, they said.

The current law, signed in July 2012, called for spending $109 billion over 30 months to fund the nation's road and transit programs. Programs are paid for out of the Highway Trust Fund, which is supported by federal taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel use.