Senate EPW Committee Releases Five-Year $287 Billion Surface Transportation Bill

Industry News / Infrastructure Funding

July 29, 2019

Senate EPW Committee Releases Five-Year $287 Billion Surface Transportation Bill

The America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act of 2019 (ATIA), released by the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee today, authorizes $287 billion in surface transportation investments over five years. The proposed bill would increase current funding by 27 percent.

“This bill provides funding to grow the program and long-term certainty; the two most important ingredients for addressing the nation’s transportation needs,” said ACEC President/CEO Linda Bauer Darr.

Of the $287 billion in highway funding, 90 percent ($259 billion) would be distributed to states by formula. The legislation would maintain each state’s share of highway formula funding and expand the flexibility and eligible uses of formula funds.

The bill would codify core elements of the “One Federal Decision” policy for highway projects including:

• Two-year goal for completion of environmental reviews
• Ninety-day timeline for related project authorizations
• Single environmental document and recrod of decision signed by all participating agencies
• Accountability and tracking system managed by the Secretary of Transportation

The bill would provide $5.5 billion in funding for the Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects program, increase funding flexibility, and prioritize certain critical interstate projects.

The legislation authorizes more than $6 billion over five years, including $3.3 billion from the Highway Trust Fund, for a competitive bridge program. At least half of the funding would support bridge projects that cost more than $100 million.

The legislation would invest $4.9 billion over five years in a new resilience program to protect roads and bridges from natural disasters such as wild fires, and extreme weather events such as hurricanes, flooding, and mudslides.

The bill would establish a $1 billion competitive grant program over five years for states and localities to build hydrogen, natural gas, and electric vehicle fueling infrastrucutre along designated highway corridors.

The EPW Committee is scheduled to mark up the bill on Tuesday. Legislation is moving more slowly in the House of Representatives and is not expected to be released before the August Congressional recess.

Click here to view a fact sheet of the bill. Click here to view the bill.

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