Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO) and the Committee’s Ranking Member Rick Larsen (D-WA) released the text of a bipartisan, five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill that invests in America’s roads, bridges, transit, rail transportation, and highway and motor carrier safety programs. The BUILD America 250 Act – Building Unrivaled Infrastructure and Long-term Development for America’s 250th Act – emphasizes moving people, goods, and freight safely and efficiently across the country.
Transit programs would receive a $2 billion investment cut to $16.9 billion in FY 2027 with modest growth thereafter. This cut is due, in large part, to the elimination of $1.6 billion in annual guaranteed Capital Investment Grants (CIG) included in current law. The CIG program, which supports transit capital projects, is authorized at $3 billion each year, but all resources would need to be secured through the annual appropriations process.
The bill funds the Highway Trust Fund by establishing a $130 annual fee on electric vehicles (EVs) and $35 annual fee for hybrid vehicles. As a result, the BUILD America 250 Act injects the Highway Trust Fund with its first new stream of revenue for infrastructure in over three decades.
The following transit highlights have been included:
- Outside of the transit title, NEPA has been updated for transit operators with substantive changes on categorical exclusions and allowance to purchase land first, and then perform NEPA
- The bill allocates $87.5 billion over five years for public transit programs, reauthorizing the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) programs to ensure local transit agencies can continue operating services
- The bill makes it easier for developers to build TOD projects using the federal TIFIA program by exempting office-to-housing conversions and TOD projects built on existing transportation-disturbed lands from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
- Increase Small Transit Intensive Cities set-aside to 5%
- All sales of buses to go back to the agency selling the bus
- For 5339, there will be a 62% formula/38% discretionary in Section 5339(a) – with a 5% rural set-aside
- Also in 5339, state set-aside increases from $4 million per state to $6 million, with the aim to improve smaller transit agencies gain access to more federal formula funding
- 5339 (a) and (b) will now be combined into a single competitive program with no Congressional discussion of propulsion types
- The bill calls for $5.85 billion for Amtrak operations in fiscal 2027 — $3.9 billion for the national network, and $1.95 billion for the Northeast Corridor. That would be an increase of more than $3 billion from the $2.41 billion overall in each of the last two years.
The Committee is scheduled to act on Thursday, May 21 with the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee aiming to release their highway portion of a reauthorization bill this summer. Existing highway and transit authorizations are set to expire Sept. 30.