President Obama signed into law the new highway bill on Dec. 4, just hours before the funding extension in place was to expire that day at midnight.

The Senate had approved by an 83-16 vote the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act on Dec. 3, not long after the House signed off on the compromise highway bill.

The legislation had emerged just two days before from the House-Senate Conference Committee that was tasked with resolving differences between the surface transportation bills passed earlier this year by the House and Senate.

The $305-billion bill is a fully funded five-year reauthorization of federal highway and transit programs.

The FAST Act has now entered the history books as the first highway funding bill to run longer than two years to become law since 2005. 

Originally posted on Automotive Fleet