H.R 2 - The Speaker's Partisan Green Infrastructure Wish List
As part of the House Speaker's partisan agenda this Congress, H.R. 2 has hijacked a surface transportation reauthorization bill to improve America's roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, as well as many other pieces of legislation.
The Speaker's "My Way or the Highway" approach has produced a massive wish list, not a serious effort to improve our infrastructure. In reality, it's a messaging exercise to force costly Green New Deal policies and federal mandates on existing infrastructure programs.
The bill's enormous $1.5 trillion cost is not paid for, but is instead piled onto the backs of future generations. It dilutes core infrastructure functions, like building roads and fixing bridges. It leaves rural America’s infrastructure needs further behind, favoring programs designed to provide more benefits to urban areas. And it fails to streamline the project review process or provide state and local communities with needed flexibility to meet their own needs.
This seismic shift in infrastructure programs couldn’t come at a worse time. States, transportation workers, and our economy need certainty and stability in these programs right now – not the total upheaval promised by H.R. 2.
Ranking Member Sam Graves statement on the Speaker's Wish List
More information about the June 17-18, 2020, Committee markup of H.R. 2, including letters from key stakeholders outlining concerns with the bill and with the lack of bipartisanship in its development.
Ranking Member Graves markup statement
Stakeholder comments, more stakeholder comments and media coverage after release of the Majority's surface transportation reauthorization bill (H.R. 2) | Additional reaction from stakeholders after the first day of Committee markup of H.R. 2
T&I Committee Republicans offered a common sense alternative surface transportation reauthorization bill, called the STARTER Act, during the markup of H.R. 2, but this measure was not approved by the Committee.
Information about the STARTER Act
Ranking Member Graves op-ed on the STARTER Act