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Highway Trust Fund Update
Congress sends Bush bill restoring highway funds

President Bush is expected to sign legislation infusing $8 billion into the financially teetering fund that supports road and bridge projects around the country, according to a report by the Associated Press.

The Bush administration acknowledged that the trust fund, which derives its revenues from the federal gas tax, was going broke much faster than anticipated and that Washington would have to begin delaying payments to states for construction work.

The House voted 376-29 on the measure to transfer $8 billion from the Treasury’s general fund to shore up the 52-year-old highway trust fund. The Senate approved the measure by a voice vote after several Republicans who had held up the legislation for months agreed to let it go forward.

The breakthrough in the Senate came after Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced that the trust fund, which enjoyed a $10-billion surplus just three years ago, would run out of money in September. She urged quick action by Congress to restore solvency to the fund.

In July, after the House first passed the $8-billion replenishment effort, the White House threatened a veto, saying taking money from the general fund was “both a gimmick and a dangerous precedent that shifts costs from users to taxpayers at large.”