Federal transportation reauthorization – BUILD America 250
RTA members and partners,
Various North Carolina state funding sources (e.g., state gas tax, state diesel tax, state highway use tax, allocation of state sales tax, state DMV fees including license and registration fees, state EV and plug-in-hybrid access user fees, etc.) comprise the majority of transportation infrastructure funding for NCDOT.
However, Federal funding remains significant for NCDOT, representing about 25% of the Department’s overall funding, and about 45% of construction project funding.
The US House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee (T&I) has released a federal transportation reauthorization bill, entitled “BUILD America 250”, which is short for “Building Unrivaled Infrastructure and Long-term Development for America’s 250th”.
There are a number of important elements, including an increased proportion of the total bill being allocated by formula funds compared to current federal transportation law.
Also of interest, the bill initiates a federal registration fee for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. You can find detailed information on that by reviewing the draft text of the Build America 250 bill (Sec. 1129, page 174). This provision is of note for several reasons. One, it is essentially the national analogue to the EV and hybrid vehicle fees that already exist in North Carolina (and other states). Two, it is the first new source of federal transportation revenue in decades.
You can review a news release on the entire bill from US Representative David Rouzer (whose district is much of southeastern North Carolina) on the bill. Representative Rouzer serves as the subcommittee chairman on highways and transit for the Transportation and Infrastructure committee. A key sentence from that release follows:
“The bill provides the largest ever investment in America’s bridges, focuses on proven surface transportation infrastructure programs, provides passenger rail investments and reforms, improves rail safety, ensures transportation projects and programs are more efficient, encourages innovation, and provides the first ever autonomous commercial motor vehicle framework.”
T&I held a full committee “markup” (review and consideration of amendments) for the bill on May 21, incorporating changes including portions of the Federal Railway Safety Act and provisions related to increasing truck weight caps on federal roads. The T&I Committee then approved the amended legislation by a very strong bipartisan vote of 62-2, and subsequently released the bill for consideration by the full US House.
I found this bill overview by the T&I Committee extremely helpful, and I commend it to our members for their review.
Let’s get moving,
Joe
