House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Monday ruled out the House voting on the bipartisan highway bill the Senate is debating, setting up a clash between the Republican-led House and Senate.
“We’re not taking up the Senate bill,” McCarthy flatly told reporters at the Capitol.
The federal program funding bridge, road and transit projects is due to run out of money at the end of the week. If Congress isn’t able to resolve the impasse, thousands of projects around the country could be put on hold during the busy summer construction season, potentially resulting in significant job losses.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly vowed to get the Senate bill to the House, and a final vote is expected on the measure later this week. Senate GOP aides have said if the House doesn’t approve that before the deadline, they are considering a one- or two-month extension in the hopes the House would have more time to consider the legislation.
Many House conservatives have criticized the Senate highway bill because it continues the program for six years, but only provides enough money to cover the first three. House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan has been working on a six-year bill that uses changes in the tax code to offset the total cost.
Complicating the debate is an effort to revive the Export-Import Bank, the 80-year-old credit agency that gives out loans to companies to promote U.S. exports. The bank’s charter expired last month, but the Senate is adding an amendment to the highway measure that renews the authority for the bank.
McCarthy and the bulk of House Republicans, however, want the bank to stay dormant. Conservatives cite the Export-Import Bank as an example of corporate welfare, and maintain companies should be getting financing through the private sector, not through government-backed loans.
McCarthy argued that the Senate needs to pass the bill the House approved earlier this month, which gives the highway trust fund enough resources through Dec. 18 and does not address the Export-Import Bank.
“If you have it already sitting in the Senate and it’s clean, why wouldn’t you take that?” he asked.
McCarthy — who pointed out that members of the House are planning to leave on Thursday for the month-long August recess — maintained the House bill would allow leaders of both chambers to work out the details on a broader multi-year highway bill. He dismissed the idea of voting on some other short-term extension, like a one- or two-month bill, because that approach costs almost as much as the legislation already passed by the House, he said.
Without a House vote on the Senate highway measure, the Export-Import Bank remains essentially shuttered. It can process existing loans, but cannot extend any new credit.