Two senators at odds on climate legislation are joining forces to push for a short-term extension of the highway bill.

"One of the best ways to spur job creation and economic recovery is through infrastructure investment," Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the chairwoman and ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, respectively, wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky.

"That is why a longer-term extension of the surface transportation program is so important to maintaining our nation's vital bridges, roads, public transportation and other related infrastructure, restoring our economy and creating good jobs for American workers."

Five senators joined Inhofe and Boxer in signing the letter: Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas).

Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer and ranking GOP member Jim Inhofe traded fierce fire last week as their committee battled over whether to move forward with a climate change bill.

But behind closed doors, the California liberal and the Oklahoma conservative say they prefer exchanging global warming gag gifts more than partisan jabs.

Inhofe brags about a mug he gave Boxer that shows sea levels rising to cover certain regions - including most of California - when heated up.

In return, Boxer gave Inhofe a stuffed polar bear - a toy version of an animal that scientists say is gravely threatened by global warming.

"We are really very good friends," said Boxer. "It's a good working relationship we have. People are very surprised about it."

WASHINGTON - Just before another short-term extension on highway programs moved forward, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe pulled the plug Thursday on his own efforts to pass a longer-term extension and protect Oklahoma and other states from more losses in road money.

All week the Oklahoma Republican had worked with fellow lawmakers in both the House and the Senate on a deal for a six-month extension, but another continuing resolution passed to take the current transportation law until Dec. 18.

"This is terrible for Oklahomans, and it is being repeated across the nation,'' Inhofe said.

He said the short-term extension, the second passed so far, will fund highway programs at levels 33 percent lower than what states had been receiving.

Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe stands out like a heretic in a world in which political correctness has become its own religion. One of the chief tenets of this new faith is that manmade global warming will be the ruination of us all. Inhofe is on a one man crusade to debunk the idea.

It doesn't matter that the "global warming" vocabulary is subtly being switched to "climate change," and for a very good reason. There is some question about how much, if any, the earth is still warming despite ever increasing carbon emissions.

House and Senate disagreements over extending surface transportation law over several months are likely to lead to a one-month fix, a key Senate Republican said Tuesday.

Environment and Public Works ranking member James Inhofe said he and Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer are pushing for a bicameral agreement on extending the law for six months. But, he noted, "the level of optimism I have is not very high."

Inhofe said the result is likely that the law -- which expires Saturday -- will be given a second consecutive one-month extension in a continuing resolution both chambers are expected to move this week

On October 27, 2009, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) appeared before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to speak on behalf of the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill. Sen. Kerry spoke uncontested for 28 minutes, allowing no time for questions by members of the Committee.

The following is a line-by-line analysis of Sen. Kerry's assertions. In reading through the document, one will see that Sen. Kerry is badly misinformed about the many of the key details and issues surrounding the climate change policy debate.

WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe says the financial hit suffered by Oklahoma's transportation program this month was $15 million more than expected.

By the end of the week, the Oklahoma Republican hopes to have a deal in place to at least halt that downward trend.

"Oklahoma loses on this," he said.

At issue is whether Inhofe and other top congressional players on transportation can work out an agreement on a short-term extension, possibly six months, of the current transportation programs.

If they fail, they may have to settle for another month-long resolution like the one passed in September.

LANSING, Mich. -- If the future of American manufacturing lies in green industries, the Michigan governor's pursuit of jobs offers a cautionary tale.

Four years ago, Jennifer M. Granholm set out to remake her state, which took an exceptional walloping with the decline of the auto industry, as a pioneer in creating environmentally friendly jobs. Today, however, jobs are still disappearing much faster than she can create them, raising questions about how long it will take Michigan and other hard-hit states to find new industries to employ their workers.

Since taking office in 2003, Granholm has created 163,300 positions, her office says. She expects that a recent infusion of more than $1 billion from the Obama administration aimed at nurturing car battery and electric-vehicle projects will generate 40,000 more positions by 2020.

In the past decade, however, as the auto industry has grown smaller, Michigan has lost 870,000 jobs -- about 632,000 of them during Granholm's tenure. The number is expected to reach 1 million by late next year, the end of her term.

What's up with those geniuses in Congress? First they scurry around to get massive stimulus funding in the pipeline in an effort to quickly jump-start the economy, and then they fiddle around and let regular transportation funding that would further aid the recovery lapse.

Not a good recipe for ensuring that the recovery will continue.

Oklahoma transportation leaders learned this week that two squirrelly actions by Congress will force the state to slash its November contracts from $53.5 million to only $6.2 million.

A total of 18 state projects, including three in the Tulsa area, will be delayed by the actions that left the Oklahoma Department of Transportation with no federal funds to expend next month.

The congressional actions - or should we call them inactions - are difficult for the average citizen to understand, but the failure of our national leaders to address this situation is incomprehensible.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla, tried valiantly this past week to have at least some of the funding restored but unfortunately was unsuccessful. "Now we are going to pay the price,'' said Inhofe.

If action isn't taken fairly soon to restore the funding, the impact on Oklahoma could eventually reach $135 million.

ODOT Director Gary Ridley made the salient observation that the state was urged to hurry up and spend stimulus funding to create jobs, and now we're being forced to delay phases of some of those projects that were expedited. Didn't anyone think this course of action through?

Inaction by Congress has jeopardized millions of dollars in highway funds for Oklahoma and may lead the state Transportation Department to cancel all bid awards next month, state transportation Director Gary Ridley said Thursday.

Congress failed on Wednesday, the last day of the federal fiscal year, to head off a planned $8 billion in cuts to state highway departments nationwide. Moreover, lawmakers have only given a 30-day extension to highway funding, restricting what Ridley's department can legally commit.

It's a double whammy for the state Transportation Department. The funding cut - called a rescission - means less money for road and bridge projects. And the short extension prevents the department from obligating money it isn't authorized to spend.

"It is really a problem," Ridley said.

Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Republican, tried to resolve the problem late Wednesday, working with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. The two came up with a plan to extend the current highway bill for three months and to use money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program - the financial industry bailout funds - to patch the funding hole.