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This story appears in the March 22 print edition of Transport Topics.

President Obama on March 18 signed into law an extension of the highway bill through the end of the year as part of a $17.6 billion package of tax incentives and bonding proposals aimed at spurring job creation.

Besides the highway bill extension though Dec. 31, the bill provides tax incentives to businesses for hiring new workers, accelerates depreciation of capital purchases, expands the Build America Bonds program and provides an infusion of roughly $20 billion for the Highway Trust Fund.

The Senate passed the bill 68-29 on March 17.

“The Highway Trust Fund funds the work of a million workers through the private sector,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “This bill extends it to the end of the year, which is a great signal of confidence to our states — to all of our transportation agencies — that they are not going to go through the doubts that, when they wake up one morning, there won’t be money in the Highway Trust Fund.”

The current authorization expired last September. Since then, highway and transit programs had been operating under a string of monthlong extensions.

However, in late February, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) temporarily blocked passage of an extension — shutting the federal program down for several days before a new agreement was reached (click here for previous story).

The longer extension, Boxer said, will give Congress time to work on new highway legislation.

“Now that this is behind us, we will focus on moving forward with a transformational transportation authorization that will create jobs and build the infrastructure America needs for economic recovery and long-term prosperity,” she said.

Democrats hailed the bill’s passage as the first of a series of measures they intend to enact to cut into the country’s high unemployment rate.

“It is the first of what I hope will be a series of jobs packages that help to continue to put people back to work,” Obama said after the vote.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that the bill was “an important step in our continuing commitment to put . . . more Americans back to work.”

“This fully paid-for legislation cuts taxes for businesses so that they can hire more workers, cuts costs for small businesses and invests in our nation’s infrastructure,” Reid said. “The bipartisan support that this bill has received is a signal that Republicans will support our jobs agenda to strengthen our economy and create jobs.”

Eleven Republicans voted for the bill, including Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

“After months of delay, due to politics as usual in Washington, Congress finally passed an extension that will ensure states receive the money they are owed and provide the long-term certainty that is the lifeblood of state and local highway and bridge programs,” Inhofe said after the vote.

“With this long-term extension soon to be signed into law,” Inhofe said, “we can now turn our attention to working together on a multiyear reauthorization of the highway program.”

However, not all Republicans shared Inhofe’s sentiment.

“This isn’t so much a jobs bill as it is a debt bill,” said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee.

John Horsley, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, said the bill’s passage was “a win for the economy and a win for workers and the communities which will benefit from the transportation projects to be built across the country.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.