New U.S. House Speaker vows to advance highway bill with "lots of amendments"

Newly-elected U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday pledged to move forward a long-term highway bill in the House of Representatives this week, making it his first order of business to fix the broken chamber.

"This week, you will see the highway bill is a good place to start," Ryan said at his first press conference since becoming the speaker last week. "We're going to have an open process on the floor with lots of amendments considered by all members from both parties."

"I think it's a good example of how we're going to do the people's business," Ryan told reporters at Republican National Committee headquarters, reiterating his commitment to change House rules to "make it a more deliberative and participatory process."

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said, "You're going to see us bring up the Senate highway bill, put the policies from the House and then have many amendments to take up ideas on both sides of the aisle."

The Senate passed its own version of highway bill in July, which would authorize funding highway and infrastructure projects for six years and provide a total of about 47 billion U.S. dollars in additional funding for the first three years.

The Obama administration and U.S. businesses have long called for Congress to pass a long-term highway bill to upgrade the country's dilapidated transportation facilities which held up economic activities.

"We're advancing an issue that is a big priority to the hard-working taxpayers of this country, fixing our roads and our bridges, improving our transportation infrastructure," Ryan said.

Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee, also called on his party to be more aggressive and "go a different direction" to show how Republicans can get things done.

"We're going to go on offense on ideas, and give the country a bold alternative agenda because we don't think the country's heading in the right direction right now. We think the last seven years have been bad years for advancing the American idea," he said.

Ryan, a former chairman of the House Budget and Ways and Means Committees, was elected on Thursday as the new Speak of House to succeed John Boehner, who abruptly announced his decision to resign from the speakership at the end of October.

Ryan pledged to fix the broken House after winning the election, promising to work with committee chairs and rank-and-file members to legislate in the lower chamber and begin solving the nation's problems instead of adding to them.

But analysts said deep structural problems in the House rules and widened division within the Republican Party would make it much harder for Ryan to heal the broken 435-member chamber. Endit