CAGTC Members,
Another busy day here in D.C. The House Transportation & Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit held a hearing on long-term funding for highways and transit this morning. We’ll send out a summary and key takeaways from that soon.
On the Senate side, as prefaced about in my email yesterday, the Senate Democrats released an infrastructure proposal today titled “Senate Democrats’ Jobs & Infrastructure Plan for America’s Workers.” You can find the text of the proposal online here. The proposal would invest $1 trillion in direct federal investment over 10 years and is proposed to be paid for through repurposing “some federal revenues spent in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that benefited only wealthy individuals and corporations.” Like the Administration’s plan, it addresses all types of infrastructure, not only transportation. A few key takeaways from the plan:
- Would provide $40 billion for a Vital Infrastructure Program (VIP)
- “A megaprojects program to fund large-scale transformational projects;”
- Distributed through a competitive grant process to fund road, rail, public transportation, airport, port, and intermodal facility projects;
- Funds available to States, cities, transit agencies, ports, railroads, and other project sponsors;
- Megaprojects are defined as those costing $500 million or more in urban areas or $100 million or more for rural areas; and
- Funds would be divided between freight and personal mobility projects and some planning grants.
- Would provide $140 billion to invest in roads and bridges, including $97 billion for direct federal spending for Federal-aid highway program and $40 billion for a new Bridge Investment Program, among other initiatives;
- Would provide $10 billion to expand TIGER;
- Would provide $50 billion to invest in both passenger and freight rail infrastructure through existing programs, including $15 billion for the Consolidated Rail and Safety Improvements program;
- Would provide $30 billion to modernize ports and waterways, including $5 billion to fund multimodal port and freight network projects and $25 billion to the Army Corps to address their backlog of projects;
- Would provide $140 billion to shore up the Highway Trust Fund and commits to “exploring bipartisan solutions to ensuring the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund beyond this initial 10 year window;”and
- Would expand existing financing programs, like TIFIA, RRIF, and WIFIA.
As you may have seen in my email this morning, USDOT has begun to notify Members of Congress of TIGER awards. However, USDOT has not yet released the official list. We will be sure to send this out, as well as any other materials released, once they are made public.
Thank you!
Katie Cross
Manager, Member Communications & Policy
Coalition for America’s Gateways and Trade Corridors
1625 K Street NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20006
tradecorridors.org