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House approves three-month fix to keep highway funds flowing

Automobile traffic backs-up as it travels north from San Diego to Los Angeles along Interstate Highway 5 in California December 10, 2013. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vital federal dollars would keep flowing to U.S. road and highway projects for three more months under a bill approved on Wednesday by lawmakers, moving to avert a funding cutoff at the peak of the summer construction season. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 385-34 in favor of a $12-billion bill to extend highway and mass transit funding through Oct. 29. The House's short-term fix was expected to win prompt approval in the Senate, before lawmakers leave Capitol Hill for an extended vacation. Departing from a display of efficient governance earlier this year, Congress has struggled to cope with the impending insolvency on Aug. 1 of the federal Highway Trust Fund. The House's short-term funding bill would give lawmakers breathing space to hammer out a more lasting solution for America's crumbling infrastructure, seen by the Obama administration as vital to future economic growth. The Senate was expected to vote Thursday on an ambitious bipartisan transportation bill that would authorize $350 billion in spending on transportation projects over six years, but provide actual funding for only three years. But a Republican aide said the Senate would likely take up the House's bill soon afterward. Approval of it would thrust the thorny issue of how to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in highway money into a turbulent tax-and-spending debate aimed at avoiding a government shutdown on Oct. 1. House lawmakers previously approved an $8.1 billion measure to extend highway funding into December, while working on their own long-term measure. Now they will have less time to craft legislation when they return from a five-week summer break in September. The two chambers would then have to agree on details before sending a final long-term package to President Barack Obama's desk for his signature. House Speaker John Boehner, who has been working with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to minimize their differences, told reporters he was confident of "smooth sailing" in the fall. But U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told Reuters the coming debate will test whether Congress is serious enough to address U.S. infrastructure needs. "A purposeful extension makes sense. But an extension for extension's sake doesn't make sense," Foxx said in an interview. The Obama administration has proposed a fully funded six-year bill providing nearly $480 billion for transportation projects, a level Foxx called "adequate" to meet economic and population growth needs. (Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell; Editing by James Dalgleish and Tom Brown)