Earlier this week, the House advanced an appropriations bill that will advance transportation and infrastructure efforts, and among those cheering is U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ), who says the legislation will boost funding to his state’s priorities.
The legislation advanced by a vote of 227 to 194, putting it on track for review in the Senate. Among the provisions it makes are funding for the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grant program and funding for the Federal-State Partnership for State of Good Repair grants. These grants assist large infrastructure projects and help fund projects to repair, replace or upgrade intercity passenger rail systems, respectively.
This is particularly, potentially beneficial for the Gateway Project — a regional effort to expand and renovate the Northeast Corridor rail line that runs between New Jersey and New York. Once approved for federal financial assistance, it could theoretically draw from either of those provisions.
“The final bill also includes language that removes an administrative roadblock specific to the Gateway Project,” Sires said. “The roadblock deals with the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan program. Current law is just ambiguous enough that it allows the Trump Administration to insist that TIFIA loans must be counted as part of the government’s investment in an infrastructure project, even if project sponsors repay the loans with non-federal money. This logic has been used to pick and choose which projects count as being “over-reliant” on federal assistance, in spite of the fact that project sponsors must prove creditworthiness to even qualify for TIFIA loans.”
The new legislation includes language that allows the Gateway Project to count TIFIA loans as non-federal shares of project costs, so long as they are paid back with non-federal money.