Obama’s signature followed the House of Representatives giving overwhelming approval for the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.
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The bill would provide money for programs with strong regional constituencies, such buses and ferries, and for the first time set up a grant program guaranteeing funds for large freight projects, which typically haven’t garnered political support because they deliver goods and not people. The bill calls for spending approximately $205 billion on highways and $48 billion on transit projects over the next five years.
The bill establishes a minimum tire fuel efficiency performance standard that will eliminate the least fuel efficient tires from the passenger tire market, while a wet traction performance standard will help ensure tire fuel efficiency improvements are not achieved that the expense of wet traction performance and safety.
Congress needs to make public transit the priority it should be by passing a long-term transportation bill with increased investment in public transit. He also praised Shuster and the lawmakers he worked with in the conference committee.
With regard to transportation, the multi-year reauthorization provides certainty for state and local governments to maintain and move forward with transportation projects.
State Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox says finally there is long term federal funding in place.
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx echoed DeFazio’s comments. “It’s not ideal, and there is still more left to do, but it reflects a bipartisan compromise I always knew was possible”.
In July, the Senate passed a long-term highway bill to reauthorize the program for six years.
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The FAST Act agreement is the work of a House-Senate committee that was tasked with resolving differences between the surface transportation bills passed earlier this year by the two legislative bodies. The conference committee of members of the House and Senate met over the last week in order to hammer out the unified FAST Act.
