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ACEC Transportation Committee members -
On June 3, 2020, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio released the draft text of a five-year, $494 billion surface transportation reauthorization bill entitled the Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation In America (INVEST in America) Act. The bill is based on the Moving Forward Framework infrastructure blueprint released this past January by the House Democratic leadership and includes funding for highway, transit, and rail programs that are set to expire in September,
The INVEST in America Act represents a 46% funding increase over current levels, including $319 billion for the Federal-aid highway program, $105 billion for transit programs, $5.3 billion for highway safety, and $60 billion for rail programs.
The following materials have been made available by the T&I Committee:
This bill is not bipartisan. It was developed solely by the Committee majority and did not include input from Ranking Member Sam Graves or Committee Republicans. The Committee plans to hold the markup of this bill on Wednesday, June 17.
The bill does not include revenue provisions related to the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund or paying for the additional funding in the bill. That is within the jurisdiction of the Ways & Means Committee, which is still discussing options internally and determining a path forward.
ACEC is reviewing the bill and talking with our colleagues in other stakeholder groups about issues of mutual interest. I've copied an initial bill summary from AASHTO, below, which they circulated to their members this afternoon and gave me permission to share.
Funding Levels
The INVEST Act authorizes $494 billion in total funding from FY 2021 to FY 2025 for highway, highway safety, transit, and passenger rail programs. Of this amount, $411 billion of contract authority is provided out of the HTF for highway, transit, safety, and research programs.
FY 2021 Extension and Funding Flexibility for COVID Relief
The major programmatic changes in the INVEST Act do not take effect until FY 2022. The bill extends the current highway, transit, and highway safety programs through FY 2021. The highway programs receive an additional $14.7 billion over current funding levels and the transit programs receive an additional $6.75 billion ($5.79 billion from the HTF and $958 million from the General Fund). In recognition of the challenges facing State DOTs and transit agencies in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, the INVEST Act allows FY 2021 highway, transit, and safety funds to be made available at 100 percent federal share, and about a quarter of total funding is available for additional eligibilities, including salaries and operating expenses.
Highways
Formula programs see major changes under the INVEST Act with the following focus areas:
- Fix It First: Requires National Highway Performance Program (NHPP) funds to conduct analysis on state of good repair and operational improvements to existing facilities before building new highway capacity.
- Bridge Investment: Requires States to spend 20 percent of their NHPP and Surface Transportation Block Grant Program (STBGP) dollars, excluding suballocation, on bridge repair and rehabilitation projects, amounting to $28 billion between FY 2022-2025. The bill also increases the off-system bridge set-aside to $1 billion per year compared to $770 million in the FAST Act.
- Local Control: Retains the current 55 percent suballocation in STBGP and reclassifies population thresholds under 200k to 5-50k and 50-200k; seeks to encourage coordination and technical assistance between state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs). Prohibits federal-state "fund swaps" unless USDOT deems the state to have comparable Buy America and Davis-Bacon policies in place.
- Climate Change: Requires USDOT to establish a new greenhouse gas emissions performance measure based on carbon emissions per capita on all public roads; creates a new formula program ($8.4 billion for FY2022-2025) to reduce carbon emissions across a wide range of eligible projects-highway, transit, and rail projects including transportation system operations costs. Top-performing states are provided funding flexibility while low-performing states must put in 10 percent of their STBGP dollars, excluding suballocation, towards carbon reduction.
- Resilience: Creates a new formula program ($6.3 billion for FY2022-2025) to fund resilience and emergency evacuation needs. Requires states and MPOs to develop an infrastructure vulnerability assessment to guide investments under the program; provides expanded eligibilities in other apportioned programs and Emergency Relief for resilience.
- Accessibility: Establishes a new performance measure for transportation access to jobs and services-including shopping, healthcare, childcare, education and workforce training, and financial institutions-over multiple modes.
- Formula Study: Calls for a study led by FHWA and AASHTO to modernize highway formulas and factors.
- CMAQ: Modifies eligibility for operating assistance to include all state-supported passenger rail lines and allows operating assistance for longer than three years if the project demonstrates net air quality benefits.
- Bicycle/pedestrian Programs: States with high levels of pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities will be subject to funding penalties; requires FHWA to adopt context sensitive and Complete Streets design principles; increases Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) funding by about 60 percent from the FAST Act.
- Safety: Restores Highway Safety Improvement Program flexibility for non-infrastructure safety improvements. Prohibits states from setting higher safety performance targets than in preceding years; focuses on high-risk rural roads, and expands eligibility for the Safe Routes to School program.
- Freight: Removes the National Highway Freight Program cap on multimodal projects and allows states to designate additional rural and urban freight corridors and provides more flexibility for States to expend funds across the National Highway Freight Network.
- Tribes, Territories, and Federal Lands: Provides $750 million per year for tribes, $100 million per year for territories, $210 million per year for Puerto Rico, and $895 million per year for federal lands.
- Tolling: Reestablishes the requirement that FHWA enter into a toll agreement before allowing tolling on a Federal-aid highway, and places creates new requirements for tolling and congestion pricing implementation.
- Workforce Development: Creates a Task Force on Developing a 21st Century Surface Transportation Workforce to evaluate current and future workforce needs and develop recommendations, and establishes transparency and reporting requirements for the On the Job Training and Supportive Services program; requires states to develop annual statewide workforce plans to identify and address workforce gaps and underrepresentation of women and minorities.
- Research and Innovation: Focuses on Intelligent Transportation Systems Program and "smart infrastructure" investment in localities similar to USDOT's SmartCities program. Establishes a new multimodal freight transportation research program and a new Highly Automated Vehicle and Mobility Innovation Clearinghouse.
- Materials Selection: Reduces materials selection flexibility by focusing funding and deployment on specific construction materials and
- Vehicle-Miles Traveled Fee Pilot: Increases funding for state pilot programs, and establishes a national program.
- TIFIA: Streamlines the program by raising the threshold above which projects are required to secure multiple credit rating agency opinions, waives application fees for smaller projects, and clarifies TIFIA as non-federal share.
A large number of new discretionary grant programs are created with funding from the HTF, including:
- Projects of National and Regional Significance: Provides more than $9 billion over the life of the bill for large highway, transit, and freight projects that cannot be funded through annual apportionments or other discretionary sources.
- Metro Performance Program: Provides high-performing localities, as determined by USDOT, with access to $750 million in direct Federal-aid Highway Program funding over four years, bypassing states.
- Community Transportation Investment Grants: Provides $600 million per year for local government applicants modeled after Virginia's Smart Scale program.
- Federal Lands and Tribal Major Projects Program: Provides $400 million per year and requires a 50/50 split of grant funds among tribes and Federal lands agencies.
- Tribal High Priority Projects: Provides $50 million per year on a discretionary basis, for grants of a maximum size of $5 million.
- Electric Vehicle Charging and Hydrogen Fueling Infrastructure Grants: Provides $350 million per year for grants for electric vehicle charging and hydrogen fueling infrastructure.
- Community Climate Innovation Grants: Provides $250 million per year to non-state applicants for highway, transit, and rail projects, provided they reduce GHGs.
New, single-year discretionary grant programs include:
- Gridlock Reduction Grants: Provides $250 million, of which half is set aside for freight grants. Grants will be awarded for reducing urban congestion in large metro areas, with an emphasis on operational, technological, and mode shift strategies.
- Rebuild Rural Grants: Provides $250 million for rural communities to address needs on and off the Federal-aid system. Focuses funding on safety, state of good repair, and access to jobs and services.
- Active Transportation Connectivity Grants: Provides $250 million for pedestrian and bicycle networks and spines and related planning, including complete streets planning.
- Commercial Motor Vehicle Parking Grants: Provides $250 million to construct and improve truck parking facilities.
Transit
- Increases total HTF funding for transit by about 50 percent.
- Funding focuses on service frequency and ridership through the vehicle revenue miles metric instead of population or low operating costs, including for rural formula grants.
- Introduces changes to Buy America and procurement including definition of and incentives to increase domestic content, and requires FTA to conduct rolling stock certifications instead of transit agencies.
- Provides funding increase for bus programs, including a five-fold increase for zero emission bus competitive grants, and creates a new state of good repair formula subgrant to push additional formula dollars to transit agencies with the oldest buses.
- Increases Capital Investment Grant federal share to 80 percent, with incentives for higher nonfederal share.
Passenger Rail
- Through the Transforming Rail by Accelerating Investment Nationwide (TRAIN) Act, the bill authorizes $60 billion-a five-fold funding increase for passenger rail.
- Establishes a new $19 billion Passenger Rail Improvement, Modernization, and Expansion (PRIME) grant program for capital investments.
- Reauthorizes the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant program at $7 billion over five years.
- Authorizes $150 million over five years to help pay credit risk premiums for certain borrowers under the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program and $70 million to refund the credit risk premiums of certain past
- Provides $29 billion over five years for Amtrak, divided into $13 billion for the Northeast Corridor and $16 billion for the National Network.
- Creates a new grade separation grant program at $2.5 billion over five years.
Stay tuned for more information and analysis from us. We'll work with the committee on key provisions that impact our members and clients and monitor proposed changes from committee members. In the meantime, if you have questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to me.
Thanks!
Matt
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Matt Reiffer
Vice President, Infrastructure, ACEC
202-682-4308
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