(The Center Square) – Five-year plans for American roads, bridges, transit, rail transportation, and highway and motor carrier safety programs reaches an 18-month crescendo Thursday with a committee markup of the $580 billion BUILD America 250 Act.
Introduced by Reps. Sam Graves, R-Mo., and Rick Larsen, D-Wash., and three others, the resolution from the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in the House of Representatives has already drawn support from industry groups, The Center Square has learned. Rep. David Rouzer, R-N.C., chairman of the Subcommittee on Highways and transit and among those introducing the bill, calls the nation’s infrastructure “the silent engine of American productivity, and it cannot afford to sit idle.”
“The BUILD America 250 Act brings commonsense fundamentals back to the forefront, strengthening our roads, highways, and bridges while ensuring the strategic, responsible use of hard-earned taxpayer dollars to get even more projects delivered,” Rouzer said. “This bill is the culmination of years of hard work and input from members of Congress and the public, including job creators around the nation, to pass a surface transportation bill that meets the fundamental infrastructure needs of the country.”
Authorization of the funds would be in fiscal years 2027 through 2031. The Highway Trust Fund contract authority accounts for a guaranteed $474.4 billion; there is $106 billion subject to future annual appropriations.
Graves is chairman of the committee and Larsen its ranking member. They, Rouzer, and Reps. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., and Daniel Webster, R-Fla., introduced what is more formally known as Building Unrivaled Infrastructure and Long-term Development for America’s 250th Act.
Norton is ranking member of Rouzer’s subcommittee; Webster is chairman of the Hazardous Materials Subcommittee.
In an email to The Center Square, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association President Todd Spencer said in part, “This surface transportation reauthorization contains many meaningful provisions that support the men and women who make their living behind the wheel and avoids missteps that would make their lives harder. We look forward to this bill advancing out of committee and to the House floor.”
The organization expressed concern with autonomous vehicle manufacturers’ ability to self-certify their technology for deployment on public roads.
Hearings in the last 18 months, input, ideas and priorities for consideration were undertaken by the panel. More than 11,000 individual policy requests were submitted.
“This bill provides the largest investment in America’s bridges in our history, begins shoring up the Highway Trust Fund, cuts federal red tape, promotes transportation innovation and safety, allows states the flexibility to address their unique infrastructure challenges,” Graves said. “I look forward to a healthy debate on the bill in committee this week, and to moving it forward in the House.”
Opposition to the bill, or parts within it, is expected from environmental organizations, alternative transportation advocates and some regional planners.
Support, in addition to OOIDA, is from the American Trucking Associations, American Council of Engineering Companies, American Cement Association, and American Public Transportation Association.
“You can’t have a big-league economy with Little League infrastructure,” Larsen said. “A commitment to bipartisan lawmaking means finding compromise; while this bill does not include every priority, I am committed to building on the last bipartisan infrastructure law by creating good-paying transportation jobs, growing the economy and safely transporting people and goods across the country by road and rail.”
