Washington, DC -- Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, spoke on the Senate floor prior to passage of H.R. 5021, the Highway Transportation Funding Act of 2014. The Senate passed the House of Representatives' proposal to extend surface transportation programs until May 2015 and provide a short-term patch for the Highway Trust Fund. The legislation now goes to the President for signature.

Set forth below are Senator Boxer's remarks tonight from the Senate floor prior to passage of the highway bill extension.

Boxer said: "It's so unfortunate the House walked away from the work we did. The bipartisan work the Senate did together. Seventy-nine votes - my goodness, we don't get that these days for Mother's Day. So it was fantastic what we did. The work of Senator Wyden and Senator Hatch, the work of Senator Carper and Senator Corker, the work of Senator Vitter in our Committee that I Chair. And it's really sad because what we wanted to do was to take care of this problem this year, in this Congress, on our watch - not kick the can down the road. That's what the House chose to do. It's most unfortunate and their pay-fors just were a lot of smoke and mirrors. Having said all that, we all know that we really can't walk away from the Highway Trust Fund, we can't let it stagger and fall. Millions of jobs and thousands of businesses depend on it. So I will be voting aye and will be working with Senator Wyden and the rest of my friends and colleagues here to make sure we get a multi-year bill as soon as possible."

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