CAGTC Members,
I’m writing today with two updates from D.C.: first, the House Transportation and Housing and Urban Development draft bill text was released; and second, an update on discussions between the President and Congressional leaders regarding a potential $2 trillion infrastructure package. Please find details about both below.
THUD
This morning, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development (THUD) released the draft text of their fiscal year 2020 (FY20) THUD bill. The $75.8 billion proposal is $4.7 billion more than fiscal year 2019 (FY19) enacted levels for THUD. However, that increase seems to have gone mostly to HUD programs – the bill includes $25.3 billion in gross appropriations for the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), a $1.2 billion decrease from FY19 enacted levels.
The bill includes $1 billion for the BUILD grant program, $100 million more than FY19 levels. $15 million of that is made available to be used on “the planning, preparation or design of projects eligible for funding under this heading, with an emphasis on transit, transit oriented development, and multimodal projects.” Additionally, $20 million should be used for “the planning, preparation or design or projects eligible for funding under this heading located in areas of persistent poverty.” The bill defines the term persistent poverty as “any county that has had 20 percent or more of its population living in poverty over the past 30 years, as measured by the 1990 and 2000 decennial census and the most recent Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates, or any census tract with a poverty rate of at least 20 percent as measured by the 2013-2017 five-year data series available from the American Community Survey of the Census Bureau.”
The House has again mandated a 50/50 split between urban and rural areas and required that USDOT rely upon the selection criteria from the fiscal year 2017 Notice of Funding Opportunity. Additionally, the bill mandates that USDOT not use Federal share or an applicant’s ability to generate non-Federal revenue as selection criteria.
Please find the text of the bill here. The House THUD Appropriations Subcommittee will hold a markup of the bill tomorrow, May 23 at 8:30am in Rayburn House Office Building room 2358-A.
Infrastructure Proposal
President Trump and Congressional leaders were scheduled to meet again today to discuss potential funding mechanisms for the $2 trillion infrastructure proposal they agreed to in principle in late April (those of you who attended our meeting last week may recall that the Hill discussions concerning an infrastructure package hinged on the White House providing a recommendation for how it should be paid for). In advance of today’s meeting, President Trump wrote yesterday to House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Schumer calling for Congress to first pass the USMCA trade deal, which would replace NAFTA, before turning to infrastructure. He also indicated that he wanted any infrastructure package to go through the existing surface transportation reauthorization, which could limit the inclusion of other types of infrastructure such as broadband.
However, this morning President Trump held a Rose Garden press conference and, according to reports from that event, indicated that he ended the scheduled discussion early because he cannot “do [infrastructure] under these circumstances,” referring to ongoing investigations into himself and the Administration. It is unclear where, if anywhere, the infrastructure proposal goes from here.
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
Office: (202) 828-9100
Cell: (202) 679-7707