Reuters reports that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said on Thursday that U.S. government could issue debt to help underpin infrastructure bank financing for priority highway, transit and other big-ticket projects. LaHood again ruled out a gas tax hike to boost construction upgrades, saying the Obama administration and Congress must shift away from traditional funding mechanisms.

The House of Representatives approved an amended job-creation bill this afternoon that would extend Highway Trust Fund authorization until Dec. 31, deposit $19.5 billion of general revenue into the Highway Trust Fund, restore this fiscal year’s highway funding to $42 billion from $30 billion, and offer additional federal support for states and localities that wish to issue Build America Bonds to finance infrastructure construction.

The Bond Buyer reports that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said at a conference sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials that the Obama administration will unveil its principles for a new multi-year transportation bill within the next 90 days. He would not say if the principles will contain recommendations for a revenue source to pay for a multi-year program.

PBS reports that the transportation bill — the massive legislation authorizing and funding the country’s roads and mass-transit infrastructure (from highways to bus lanes to railways to bike lanes) — expires every six years. That, however, does not mean a new bill is passed every six-years. It’s Washington, D.C., after all.

If Sen. Jim Bunning had not balked at the end of his far-from-perfect game on the floor of the U.S. Senate, the Colorado Department of Transportation and the team of contractors out in the field on numerous federal-aid highway projects stood to lose an average of $1.76 million in reimbursement per workday.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. Senate was tied in knots Monday as it tried to get around a single lawmaker’s objection to a spending bill. Sen. Jim Bunning (R., Ky.) again blocked a $10 billion bill that would have extended unemployment benefits and other programs after halting its progress last week. And on Monday, the impact of his blockade started biting, with the expiration of benefits to 100,000 people and the suspension of 41 transportation projects across the country.

Following an emergency meeting today to discuss the impact of the current shutdown of federal highway and transit programs, state transportation officials called the action a bad situation that will only get worse. “If you do the math, we’re talking about more than $153 million a day in lost reimbursement payments for highway projects to the states,” said Larry L. “Butch” Brown, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Transportation and president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. “Congress has to move quickly to correct this by passing legislation and getting it signed into law.”

The Federal Times reports that Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said Wednesday the department has a backlog between $80 billion and $100 billion in high-priority infrastructure improvement projects that it cannot afford to fund.

The Journal of Commerce reports that Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, says he backed a Democratic jobs bill Monday after Majority Leader Harry Reid assured him the Senate will vote later in 2010 on a long-term surface transportation bill.

Voinovich was one of five Republicans who backed a jobs bill offered by Reid, D-Nev., which would also extend current federal transportation spending levels through the end of this year. Voinovich said that before casting his vote to help get the jobs bill past a filibuster, “Leader Reid gave me his commitment that he will bring the reauthorization of a multi-year surface transportation bill to the floor for a vote this year.”

Lawmakers in the Colorado House passed some exceptions Tuesday to the controversial late fees in last year’s FASTER bill. The changes would allow clerks a bit more discretion in waiving the fees, exempt commercial trailer owners if they can document they had idled that part of their fleet, and put a $10 maximum late fee on non-motorized vehicles 2,000 pounds or less.