A two month extension of the expiring TEA-21 legislation was quickly cleared last night after Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) spoke with Senator Christopher Bond (R-Missouri) to release his hold on the legislation. Funding for the programs in the Department of Transportation will be released, avoiding a costly shutdown this weekend, although progress is still slow on the eventual conference over a new transit bill. House and Senate negotiators met with the White House yesterday to resolve funding differences, with few details released. Thursday, 20 GOP Senators joined all 48 Democrats in signing a letter insisting that the Senate's higher $318.9 billion funding level was the lowest all could accept, far above the House and White House requests.