House and Senate in familiar continuing resolution endgame

Passing stop-gap legislation to fund the federal government beyond the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year will likely be the last order of business before Congress adjourns for the midterm elections. Leaders are pressing to finish work next week.

"We can't go home until we have a continuing resolution," House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday at her weekly press briefing.

"That's what we are putting together now," she added. "And when we have that, we can make a decision as to when we go home. But we can't go home until we have that."

The Senate is expected take up the CR first early next week, according to a top House appropriator.

Traditionally, the House considers spending legislation before the Senate does. But House Democratic leaders don't want to risk acting first on a CR that the Senate may not be able to pass. Democrats hold 59 seats in the Senate and may need a Republican vote to clear the bill.

The House had been expected to hold votes Friday, including a long-shot possibility of taking up the CR. But House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., late Thursday decided to scrap the Friday session because more work was needed on the stop-gap spending bill.

"I was hopeful that we would be able to reach an agreement with the Senate on a continuing resolution so that the House could act on it tomorrow, but while negotiations are progressing, they are not complete," Hoyer said in a release Thursday night. "We will be back next week to complete action on it. The House will meet at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 29, and votes are also possible on Thursday, Sept. 30. There will be no votes on Friday, Oct. 1."

Democrats were weighing a request from the White House to include a raft of provisions in the bill, such as $250 million to beef up the healthcare workforce.

"Without intervention, experts are projecting a shortage of primary-care health providers to meet the demands of the newly insured under health reform," the White House said in its request document.

Republicans, who contend the White House is requesting more than $20 billion extra in the CR, have argued that the measure should not include what they say is extraneous spending.

The White House has also requested that the legislation include language that would make permanent a pilot program that allows trucks weighing up to 100,000 pounds to travel on federal interstate highways in Maine and Vermont.

The Coalition for Transportation Productivity Thursday wrote to Senate Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Patty Murray, D-Wash., urging her to agree to the White House's request.

In the letter, John Runyan, executive director for CPT -- which consists of a group of more than 160 shippers and allied associations -- contends that before the program began, heavy trucks in the states were forced onto secondary roads that often go through towns and pass schools and other places where accidents are more likely to occur.

The Coalition Against Bigger Trucks earlier this week urged lawmakers not to extend the pilot programs. The coalition says its members consist of citizen organizations, state and local law enforcement agencies, senior citizens groups, highway safety advocates, and environmental and business groups.

CABT said the White House's move to extend the program would undermine federal interstate highway truck weight limits and would increase wear and tear on the nation's interstates.

Billy House contributed to this report.