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July 24, 2014      6:05 PM

As federal highway funds run out, road construction will come to a halt says Pickett

No apparent sense of urgency in D.C. as partisan divide grinds nation's business to a halt

Congress may or may not come to some resolution next week on a solution to fix the Highway Trust Fund, but Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, could hardly tell from his meeting with the state’s leading transportation advocates on Wednesday morning.

US Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, spoke directly to the crisis during his weekly phone call with reporters yesterday. The Senate and House must come to consensus next week before the Congressional summer recess, or risk running short on payments to states on roads and bridges, come early August.

“We have competing proposals, Senate and House, and some amendments that will be voted on along with those two proposals,” Cornyn noted in passing on his weekly conference call with reporters. “The House has come up with a ‘least bad’ solution. It’s a temporary fix, but one that will take us into next year. The big problem that we continue to wrestle with is, ‘What do we do when the Highway Trust Fund continues to be inadequate?’ We have some interesting ideas, none of which have gained critical mass. We need to do better next year, after this temporary fix expires.”

By Kimberly Reeves