On March 30, 2012, President Obama signed into law a stop-gap infrastructure bill, extending US highway programs through June 30, 2012. The bill:

The last-minute bill, passed by both the House and the Senate on March 29, 2012, is the ninth extension of highway funding since the last multi-year plan, a $286 billion measure, ended in 2009. Impasses over a new long-term measure stem from, among other things, partisan differences over how to fund the HTF which is rapidly shrinking due to increased vehicle fuel efficiency and a decrease in travel because of higher gasoline prices. Although the 18.4 cents per gallon tax, which was last raised in 1993, has been criticized as insufficient to generate the revenues required to finance all the necessary infrastructure projects, there is little appetite in Congress or the White House to raise this tax. As a result, the HTF has been relying in large part on distributions from the US general fund to meet its obligations.

Congress's inability to reach agreement on a long-term financing solution for the HTF may cause some States to rely more on the private sector to finance their infrastructure projects by adopting or expanding their public private partnership programs.

For more information on government financing of US infrastructure projects, see Practice Note, Public Private Partnerships: Issues and Considerations: Government Financing of Infrastructure Projects in the US.