The U.S. Senate approved the extension of federal highway funding that was passed by the House on Thursday, accepting a short-term solution leaders in the chamber vehemently opposed, The Hill reported.

The measure, H.R 4281, now goes to President Barack Obama. It extends the current funding for road and transit projects until June 30, the ninth such continuance of the last multiyear highway authorization that was approved by Congress, which expired in 2009.

Even as they were approving the measure in an anticlimactic voice vote, Democrats sharply criticized Republicans for not accepting a two-year, $109 billion version of the transportation measure the Senate had approved earlier this month.

“If the House had a bill, this would be a negotiation between two bills,” Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said during debate on the temporary extension on the Senate floor. “The problem is they don’t have a bill. They have ideas, they have speeches, they have platforms, but they don’t have a bill. We couldn’t negotiate with them even if we wanted to.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) admitted that the extension was not the outcome he and other leaders in the Democrat-controlled upper chamber had sought. “This has been a difficult time for everyone,” Reid said from the floor shortly after the Senate had approved the House’s transportation measure. “What we have is what none of us wanted.”

The approval of the highway funding stopgap averts an interruption in the federal government’s authorization to collect the 18.4 cent-per-gallon gas tax, which had been set to expire Saturday. The money is traditionally used to fund transportation projects.