The Wall Street Journal — U.S. funding levels for highway and mass-transit construction could drop by as much as 30% from existing levels in coming months without congressional action to fix an accounting quirk, a Transportation Department official said Wednesday.

“When is a little unclear,” Roy Kienitz, undersecretary of policy for the Transportation Department, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “We’re trying to figure that out.”

The anticipated drop is due in part to Congress’s failure to pass a long-term transportation spending bill. Instead, Congress has passed two short-term extensions of the existing law as it has turned its attention to health-care legislation. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), chairwoman of the Public Works Committee, said she would push for a six-month extension of the current transportation law that would include a measure to prevent the drop in funding. [read more…]