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NAFCU and eight other financial and housing industry trades asked Senate leaders to oppose using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac credit-risk guarantee fees, or g-fees, to help fund the highway bill that cleared its first major hurdle in the Senate late Wednesday.

"G-fees are a critical risk management tool used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to protect against losses from faulty loans," the groups wrote in a letter this week to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "Increasing g-fees for other purposes – even just extending the current fee increase for four years – effectively taxes potential homebuyers and consumers looking to refinance their mortgages."

In their own letter to McConnell and Reid, Senators Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Mark Warner, D-Va., noted that such offsets are prohibited by the Fiscal Year 2016 budget resolution.

"Each time guarantee fees are extended, increased and diverted for unrelated spending," the senators wrote, "homeowners are charged more for their mortgages and taxpayers are exposed to additional risk."

On Wednesday, the Senate voted to take up the highway bill, but it still faces an uphill fight with a number of contentious amendments expected, ranging from immigration and healthcare to reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank.

The Senate bill would extend transportation funding for six years. A House-passed bill provides for only a five-month extension. Current highway funding runs out at the end of the month.