Two House committee chairmen unveiled legislation Monday night to fund highway spending through the end of the year by raising $8 billion through stepped-up tax compliance measures.

The bill would avert an end-of-the-month deadline to extend authorization of highway spending programs and replenish the Highway Trust Fund, but it faces uneven prospects in the Senate, where top lawmakers have said they want a longer extension.

Republicans Paul Ryan, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee with jurisdiction over taxes, and Bill Shuster, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, urged support for their newly introduced measure, saying in a joint statement that the "country needs a long-term plan to fix our roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, and this bill gives us our best shot at completing one this year. By providing resources through the end of the year, we can ensure construction continues while we work toward a package that could close the trust fund's shortfall for as many as six years. We urge all members who want some long-sought stability in our highway and transit programs to support this critical extension."

Key Republicans in the Senate, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have said they favor a plan to replenish the Highway Trust Fund for six years, giving states and cities the ability to plan longer-term projects.

Ryan said last week that he also favors such a long-term funding measure, and that his plan is to find a way to do it through international tax reform that would involve a one-time collection of taxes owed on corporate foreign earnings currently held untaxed outside the country. But he has warned that there is not time to reach an agreement on a deal along those lines before the end of the month.

The patch through the end of the year would be paid for with a grab-bag of $5 billion worth of tax compliance measures, as well as one $3 billion effort to reduce spending.

The tax compliance measures include a crackdown on inaccurate reporting of mortgages by lenders, clarifying the statute of limitations on reassessing some tax returns, and requiring large estates to report the value of a property upon the owner's death. The bill would also include a small tax cut on liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas, both of which are currently taxed more than diesel and gasoline on an energy-equivalent basis.

Ryan and Shuster also get $3 billion in spending reductions by changing the budgetary treatment of Transportation Security Administration fees to prevent them from being spent later. They claim that the provision would not raise costs for passengers.