Dive Brief:

• With a final Senate vote, the Highway Trust Fund will keep operating through next May and the U.S. Department of Transportation will not be delaying payments to states as a way to stretch scant funds, which had been the plan starting this month.
• The rescue plan does not do anything to solve the basic problem of revenue for the fund being far short of the costs of construction, but the plan puts a $11 billion patch in place for now.
• In the last-minute go-rounds, the House passed the $11 billion plan, the Senate voted to amend it to less money and a December return to the problem; the House then voted against that and the Senate approved the bill the House had sent.

Dive Insight:

One possible reason for the gamesmanship is that the Senate's version would have forced a debate over the highway trust fund during a lame duck session of Congress, when Democrats are still assured control of the upper chamber no matter what happens in the November midterm elections. The plan from the GOP-run House kicked the can farther down the road, so the fund's fate will come up again in a Congress shaped by this year's elections.