How a Stopgap Bill Could Restore Transportation Programs

Politics|House approves a stopgap measure to revive proscription programs and extremity furloughs caused by the voting delay.

• Oct. 1, 2021Updated 8:49 p.m. ET

The House approved a stopgap measure connected Friday nighttime to revive cardinal aboveground proscription programs that lapsed astatine the extremity of the fiscal twelvemonth connected Thursday and bring backmost astir 4,000 furloughed workers.

While Congress passed authorities connected Thursday to avert a authorities shutdown, it did not code expiring proscription programs that would beryllium reauthorized by the bipartisan infrastructure measure President Biden and lawmakers negotiated this year. With a ballot connected that authorities delayed by heavy disputes among Democrats, the caller fiscal twelvemonth began connected Friday with those programs temporarily frozen and astir 3,700 Transportation Department workers furloughed.

The stopgap bill, which passed the House by a ballot of 365 to 51, would widen the programs done Oct. 31. The Senate volition question to walk it connected Saturday, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said connected Friday night.

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