The New York Times reports that Sen. Barbara Boxer urged Obama Administration officials to help broker a congressional compromise in the stalemate over a new transportation funding bill, as the extensions of SAFETEA-LU are beginning to take a toll on highway and transit projects.

“We need your help on this standoff,” Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, told two top Transportation Department officials that she had summoned to brief her committee.

Boxer’s comments came one day after she and six other committee leaders and ranking members – including James Inhofe (R-Okla.) – relented on their ongoing effort to punt the next multiyear highway and transit bill into 2011 and instead called for a shorter, six-month extension that would continue current federal spending until June 2010.

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