‘Good chance’ of Senate highway bill Tuesday, says Leader McConnell

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday that he is on the verge of clinching a long-term transportation agreement with a top Democrat. 

McConnell told reporters in Kentucky that he had been negotiating all weekend with Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate panel that oversees highway policy. “I spoke with her yesterday and we’re hoping to be able to announce tomorrow a major bipartisan multi-year highway bill,” McConnell said in Shepherdsville, Ky.

{mosads}”There’s a good chance that by tomorrow, you will have a McConnell-Boxer multiyear highway bill on the floor of the Senate,” McConnell added.

The Senate is scheduled to take its first procedural vote on a highway bill on Tuesday, just 10 days before the July 31 deadline for replenishing the Highway Trust Fund.

Republicans and Democrats in the chamber have been discussing ways to pay for a long-term infrastructure bill for much of the last week, but McConnell’s office has yet to release any details about a potential long-term bill. An aide to the majority leader declined Monday to elaborate on McConnell’s comments in Kentucky.

A Senate Democratic aide wasn’t quite as optimistic on Monday that a deal was imminent, but didn’t rule out that a long-term highway agreement could be struck. “There isn’t a deal yet — discussions are ongoing but there are still significant issues to be resolved,” the aide said.

McConnell and other Senate GOP leaders have said they at least want to fund highway projects through the 2016 elections. Republicans like Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) have been pushing for a full six-year deal, but other GOP senators have said they’d be happy with a three-year bill. 

House Republicans have taken a different approach, passing a highway extension through mid-December. Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) wants to use that time to hash out a revamp of the U.S.’s international tax system that would also include money for highway projects. Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) have floated a similar plan. 

In the Senate, lawmakers have been looking at a roughly $80 billion package of potential offsets for a highway bill. But Democrats have stridently opposed the largest proposed offset, which would wring savings out of a federal employee retirement savings plan. And Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) has made it clear that he’s no fan of the next largest, which would end dividends that the Federal Reserve pays to member banks.

Democrats have also raised questions about the highway bill’s safety measures, which could further complicate the chances of a long-term bill. 

McConnell’s own conference could throw some hurdles to a highway deal as well. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has floated the idea of blocking the highway measure if a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank — which got the support of 65 senators in a test vote last month — gets tacked on.

And Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has said he will push to defund Planned Parenthood in any legislative vehicle that hits the Senate this week, after the recent video that showed one of the organization’s executives talking about the donation of fetal organs.

– Updated at 7:25 p.m. Keith Laing contributed.