Democrats are threatening an aggressive confrontation with Republicans over federal highway money, foreshadowing yet another round of brinkmanship with the GOP and raising the specter of a temporary shutdown of transportation construction sites nationwide.

House and Senate Democrats are weighing a hard-line strategy that would force Republicans to stumble through a series of painful short-term highway extensions if they don’t fix the program’s long-term funding woes, with the Highway Trust Fund slated to run out of money after July 31.


Democrats have long insisted that Congress needs to put the highway fund on firm financial footing for years to come, but bipartisan antipathy to new taxes has produced a series of stopgaps and patches under the leadership of both parties.

“I think it’s horrible that they’re even thinking about the short-term extension,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in an interview. “I think it’s ridiculous.”

Unless Republicans can come up with tens of billions of dollars in new tax money or spending cuts, the GOP could be forced to acquiesce to Democratic demands or risk a shutdown of infrastructure projects in the middle of the summer construction season. Still, the strategy could also blow up in Democrats’ faces, as the GOP is sure to paint them as obstructionists, particularly if a shutdown comes to pass in July.

The goal, Democratic sources said, is to expose the GOP’s lack of planning ahead of the July deadline and pressure them to come up with as much as $90 billion for a six-year transportation bill just at flat funding levels, a near impossibility without politically painful tax increases. The most aggressive tactic, raised by Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) at a private bicameral leadership meeting Tuesday, would have Democrats filibuster any transportation funding extension lasting longer than 30 days.

Democratic leaders are now shopping the idea to their chairmen and the rank and file to test just how far the party is willing to press Republicans on an issue that’s sharply divided the GOP.

The early returns inside the Democratic leadership meeting were positive, sources said, suggesting Democrats will force a showdown over the looming transportation cliff.

“They’re nothing but trouble,” said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas). “They’re just feeling a bit feisty and cantankerous.”

“They’re going to try to jam us on everything,” added Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 GOP leader.

Democrats have not yet settled on how much rope they are willing to give Republicans, but they believe they can score political points hammering the GOP over legislation that supports thousands of American jobs. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is expected to take the lead in the campaign, and he hopes to eventually enlist influential transportation lobbying groups to join Democrats’ push.

But it’s Durbin who’s suggesting the toughest tack: requiring Republicans to come up with either tens of billions for a long-term bill or approximately $2 billion every month to avoid a construction shutdown. Democratic leaders reason they can hit Republicans for running up against deadlines right after the Senate GOP allowed key surveillance laws to go dark for two days this week.

“We’re serious about it,” Durbin said. It “really keeps reminding them you can’t put this off for six months or a year and expect us to just stand by and let you get away with it.”

But Republicans may have a trump card to play if they pursue a five-month transportation extension, the most popular length among GOP leaders. They could dangle a vote to attach the Export-Import Bank to a highway patch and dare Democrats to block the legislation after making such a show of support for Ex-Im in last month’s divisive debate over fast-track trade bills.

Democratic senators acknowledged in interviews this could complicate their plans to uniformly stand against any short-term highway bills, but attaching Ex-Im could also deplete support for a transportation bill among conservative Republicans.

Key Republicans on transportation acknowledged their party is vulnerable on the issue, and they’re racing to come up with a counterstrategy. Senate Republican chairmen agreed on Wednesday in a private meeting to prioritize a long-term highway bill, which could cost $90 billion for a six-year piece of legislation that only keeps current project funding levels going without making any increases that Democrats will also demand.

But that complicates the job of Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who have to find $11 billion in new revenue just to get to the end of the year. There’s a major division on Capitol Hill between Republicans who write transportation policy and those like Hatch and Ryan that actually have to come up with the money, which is very unlikely to come through new tax revenues.

Instead, Republicans suggest they can cut spending across the government to come up with the $15 billion per year that the federal highway program would need for a meaty bill.

“The shortfall is $15 billion,” said Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a belt-tightening Republican up for reelection next year. “Are you telling me you can’t find $15 billion of lower priority spending?”

Johnson may be disappointed given what lawmakers have been able to accomplish so far; it’s been difficult to find enough money just to pay for the short-term patches Congress has been using.

Democrats and Republicans on the two tax-writing committees appeared close to a deal on an $11 billion extension in mid-May with the GOP even agreeing to some tax compliance measures they’d previously opposed. But that fell apart after Democrats blamed Republicans for trying to force spending cuts into the deal and lawmakers punted the fight until July.

Now, with highway funding set to dry up in less than two months, lawmakers seem no closer to a deal than they were in May. Several Ways and Means Republicans said highways didn’t even come up during their weekly Wednesday luncheon.

Leaders of the House and Senate transportation committees have already started laying the groundwork for a year-end extension. Hatch has a “significant” amount of money squirreled away for the path, senators said, but is keeping it close while some of his colleagues talk tough about no longer kicking the can.

“There’s nothing that we’ll know at the end of the year that we don’t know right now. And I’ll be really disappointed if we go beyond the end of July without a long-term highway bill,” said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a GOP leader. “My view is we should engage.”

Hopping from extension to extension also seems to be taking its toll on rank-and-file members. Rep. Reid Ribble of Wisconsin — one of 12 House Republicans to vote no on the most recent patch — said he’s lobbying his colleagues to oppose any more short-term deals that allow lawmakers to avoid solving the fundamental imbalance between revenue shortfalls from the gas tax and the more than $50 billion Congress seeks to spend on transportation annually.

“This is not rocket science, it’s mathematics,” Ribble said.

Those divisions and the lack of a public strategy for dealing with infrastructure have Democrats thinking they have Republicans right where they want them.

The impact of Capitol Hill inaction on the highway program has already started to ripple across the country. Seven state DOTs have canceled or delayed construction projects worth more than $1.6 billion this year according to a tally kept by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association. A further 12 states have warned they might be forced to take similar action.

With Republicans overseeing highway funding in both chambers of Congress for the first time in more than eight years, their vows to govern responsibly are about to be tested. And no one expects the Democrats to be particularly helpful.

John Bresnahan contributed to this report.