President Barack Obama will be making a major push this week to urge Congress to continue funding the Highway Trust Fund and avoid a transportation crisis.
Congress is scrambling to avoid letting the transportation fund lapse. The fund is slated to become insolvent as early as next month. According to an email from a White House official, the president thinks a funding lapse will endanger several transportation initiatives, and he will lobby congressional Republicans this week to support a bill to keep the fund solvent.
Committee leaders in both the House and Senate are trying to agree on language for a stopgap measure to at least forestall a funding gap until the end of the year or sometime in 2015.