House introduces transportation bill
The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure said its Subcommittee on Highways and Transit plans to begin mark-up of the next surface transportation authorization bill on Wednesday and released a “committee print” of the 775-page bill.
Committee Chairman James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., said the bill “restructures surface transportation programs to a performance-based framework to cut fatalities and injuries on our highways; bring highway, bridge, and public transit systems to a state of good repair; reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions; and support robust investment in our nation’s infrastructure.”
The committee said the bill would consolidate several past programs to create a new discretionary Projects of National Significance to target projects of national, rather than regional, significance, including highway, transit, freight rail, projects that benefit highway users, and intermodal projects.
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The federal government will establish a freight improvement program to improve the operations of the existing freight transportation system, add physical capacity “in places where investment makes economic sense,” strengthen the ability of rural communities to access national and international trade markets, and support regional economic development. Each of the states is to establish a freight advisory committee of public and private sector representatives to advise each state of freight-related priorities and create a long-range freight plan.
The bill also establishes an Office of Intermodalism in the Department of Transportation with an under secretary to promote intermodalism and reduce barriers to intermodal transportation.
The bill also calls for creation of a National Infrastructure Bank to “maximize the limited resources available for addressing surface transportation needs.” A white paper released by the committee last week said past “failures to make the necessary level of investments to preserve and upgrade the surface transportation system have led to mounting maintenance backlogs, rising costs to complete projects, and a worsening user experience due to the deterioration in condition and performance of the system.”
The bank would be financed through the U.S. Treasury Department and operated “like a larger version of the existing Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program,' with additional authorities, the committee said. It said it hoped to attract private capital for infrastructure investment with the bank, by among other things, provides full-faith-and-credit guarantees by the federal government to institutional investors that make loans through the bank. ' Chris Dupin