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While the House waits for the Senate to decide how it will handle transportation tax and borrowing bills, Speaker Robert DeLeo said lawmakers must treat the topic as a top priority even while juggling the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“With COVID-19, there’s probably a tendency to put everything on the back burner, but I don’t think that’s one of the issues that we can put on the back burner,” DeLeo said Wednesday after attending the swearing-in of two new representatives. “I think it’s something that we have to take seriously and come up with a long-range plan in terms of how we’re going to fund our transportation system.”

The House approved two major transportation bills on consecutive days in March, about a week before Gov. Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency because of the virus. One bill would impose tax and fee increases, including a 5-cent hike to the state’s gas tax, to generate more than $500 million per year in revenue, while the other authorized $18 billion in long-term borrowing to fund transportation investments.

Neither bill has emerged in the Senate in the ensuing months. On Thursday, the Senate will vote on a bill allocating $300 million to an annual municipal road and bridge maintenance reimbursement program and creating a new MBTA Board.

Senate leaders have not indicated plans for the broader underlying bills.

The Senate’s proposal for a new, seven-member T board differs from the approach taken by the House, which as part of its transportation tax bill approved extending the existing Fiscal and Management Control Board that expires on June 30 another three to five years and adding two more seats.

Asked about the different approach the two branches have taken so far to transportation legislation, DeLeo said the House and Senate “probably will have a ways to go in terms of trying to come to some type of consensus to send onto the governor’s desk.”