On Wednesday, the House Transportation Committee began consideration of their transportation reauthorization proposal - "Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America" (INVEST in America) Act. For further information on the proposal see our INVEST in America Town Crier blogpost.
Our Federal partners at the National League of Cities (NLC) have been working with Members of the Committee to introduce key amendments, which will raise the local share of transportation formula funding. Thanks to NLC’s advocacy, Amendment #73, proposed by Representative Carbajal of California, is expected to be included in Chairman DeFazio’s manager’s amendment package, likely securing its passage in the Committee. This will be the first markup under new Congressional rules due to COVID-19. We will likely see more than 100 proposed amendments and a Republican minority counter-bill proposal. It is anticipated that the House will use the INVEST Act as a base bill to build up a full infrastructure package aligned with the ’’Moving Forward’’ framework, announced by leadership in February of 2020, and which could arrive for a vote on the House floor before the July 4th recess.
We thank Congressman Pallone for his work on the ‘Moving Forward’ framework and for his co-sponsorship of ‘INVEST in America.’ And we thank Congressmen Sires, Payne, and Malinowski – all Members of the Transportation Committee – for consistently advocating on behalf of our State and our municipalities.
Contact: Jon Moran, Senior Legislative Analyst, jmoran@njlm.org, 609-695-3481 x121.