The Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives decided Wednesday to attach the continuing resolution to the conference report of the annual spending bill for the legislative branch. Conferees met Thursday morning. The report passed the House today by a vote of 217-190 and is expected to be considered Tuesday by the Senate.

Republicans objected to the strategy, Congressional Quarterly reported, because it would prevent them from offering several motions to amend the CR, including one to bar any future increase in the federal gasoline tax as part of a long-term authorization of federal highway and transit programs. (see related story).

Under House and Senate rules, a conference agreement is not subject to amendment on the floor, enabling the Democratic leadership to expedite action on the attached continuing resolution. However, because the CR was not included in the legislative appropriations bills as passed by the House and Senate, the conference report is subject to a point of order. That could be a hurdle to enactment in the Senate, where 60 votes would be needed to waive a point of order against the conference report.

The House has passed all 12 of the annual appropriations bills for FY 2010, while the Senate has acted on five. None have been reconciled and sent to President Barack Obama. House leaders had hoped to bring up three of the conference reports to the floor this week so that they could reach the White House for signature by Sept. 30. But disputes over whether to subject for-profit earmarks to competitive bidding have bogged down agreement by conferees on two of the three bills. The legislative agency bill has no for-profit earmarks.

CR Addresses Transportation Extension But Not Rescission

With House and Senate transportation committees in disagreement over how long to extend authorization of the federal highway and transit programs, appropriators included a one-month extension in the continuing resolution to prevent a shutdown of the programs Oct. 1 if no other extension is enacted.

Transportation advocates had hoped that the CR might also become a vehicle for the repeal of a pending $8.7 billion rescission of highway contract authority that is slated to take effect Sept. 30. (see related story) But efforts to include such a provision were unsuccessful.

According to an earlier report by Transportation Weekly, during a meeting of House conferees, Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-OH, offered an amendment to repeal Section 10212 of SAFETEA-LU, the 2005 transportation authorization law that contains the rescission requirement. The provision was included in the 2005 act as a bookkeeping matter for purposes of budget scoring, with the expectation that it would be repealed before the Sept. 30, 2009, imposition.

However, the amendment was rejected on a party line vote of 7-4 with Democrats opposing the rescission repeal while Republicans supported it.