The Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee didn’t propose or mark up a transit title for surface reauthorization. 1931) and Commerce, Science and Transportation ( S. The bill also includes provisions similar to language advanced out of the Senate Environment and Public Works ( S. “Whether it’s the needs of the MTA, projects like Gateway, the Second Avenue subway, the East River Tunnels, Penn Access and others, this deal represents massive investments that will rebuild and revive the Empire State’s infrastructure,” Schumer said in a statement Thursday.Įarlier: Transit Spending Pitched as Means to Boost Equity, Aid Climate Highways, Funding Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) at the Capitol on Tuesday. The transit funding would advance major projects in the state, including the long-delayed Gateway Program rail tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey, Schumer said. New York would benefit from the boost in transit funding, said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). The measure would also provide supplemental funding, including about $10.3 billion for transit infrastructure grants, $8 billion for Capital Investment Grants, and nearly $1.8 billion for accessibility upgrades. At least 25% of the money would be directed to projects related to the acquisition of low- or no-emission buses. $206 million in grants for buses for each of the next five years, compared with $90.5 million annually for fiscal 2016 through 2020.$3 billion each year from the general fund for Capital Investment Grants, an increase from the $2.3 billion annual authorization from fiscal 2016 through 2020 and.$13.4 billion in fiscal 2022 from the Highway Trust Fund’s mass transit account, increasing to $14.6 billion in fiscal 2026 - a bump from the $10.2 billion authorized for fiscal 2020 under the FAST Act ( Public Law 114-94).The 2,702-page measure, which was unveiled Sunday, would authorize: The momentum follows weeks of back-and-forth negotiations, where transit was one of the major sticking points. The final text of the measure comes after the chamber cleared a second procedural hurdle Friday on the legislative vehicle for the bill, making passage of the major plank of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda likely in the Senate in the coming days. “I don’t like paying for something twice,” he said.Funding for public transportation would see a boost from levels set by Congress in the last highway law under bipartisan infrastructure legislation proposed in the Senate. Graves added that tolling didn’t excite him either as an infrastructure funding mechanism. “I have a problem with fuel taxes anyway because we have a lot of vehicles on the road that aren’t buying gas or are hybrids and fuel efficiency is getting better and better all the time. But he was not otherwise enthusiastic about fuel taxes’ viability as automobile technology improves. Graves said he wanted to avoid any funding mechanism that would present motorists with a single tax bill at the end of the year, crediting fuel taxes with the pay-as-you-go method.
He said funding an infrastructure package is the transportation committee’s top priority after Federal Aviation Authority reauthorization, but he expected the congressional infrastructure deal to be notably different from President Trump’s proposal, which leverages $200 billion in federal funding to attract a total of $1.5 trillion in total investment. Graves is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, Committee on Transportation Infrastructure. Everything is on the table in terms of funding the highway trust fund moving forward.” I don’t think we ought to even try (with the gas tax). “We could look at (vehicle miles traveled), maybe possibly some sort of indexing component. “I don’t think we can get a gas tax passed through the House of Representatives right now,” he said. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) cast doubt on the likelihood of funding infrastructure improvements with a gas tax increase, during a March 6 Capitol Hill briefing with county officials. Graves says a gas tax increase probably won't pass this House of Representatives 2022 Fall Board of Directors Meeting & LUCC Symposium.