This week, President Trump’s infrastructure package met resistance from the Republican chairmen of two committees with jurisdiction over infrastructure legislation. Representative Bill Shuster (R-Pennsylvania), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota), Chairman of Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation, have concerns about the package’s current structure.
The White House’s infrastructure proposal has not been written into legislation yet but Chairman Thune criticized the President’s “Legislative Outline for Rebuilding Infrastructure in America,” a legislative blueprint released earlier this month, for creating new programs to steer federal funds rather than taking advantage of existing federal programs. Thune argues creating new programs, including a Rural Infrastructure Program, will lead to unnecessary bureaucracy, red tape, and confusion. Senator Thune’s preference is for an infrastructure bill that will utilize existing bureaucracy for infrastructure funding and steer federal funds through programs such as TIFIA (Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act), RRIF (Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing), INFRA (Infrastructure For Rebuilding America Grants), and PABs (Private Activity Bonds).
Chairman Shuster is skeptical of the effectiveness of the Administration’s proposed state incentives program which the President argues will deliver $1.5 trillion in total infrastructure spending over 10 years. The White House says that in order to receive federal funding under the new infrastructure package, state and local governments and investors will be required to provide more of their own funding. Representative Shuster argues this plan leans too heavily on state and local governments for funding and says proposal will not work in states like his (Pennsylvania) where the government has already exhausted state infrastructure funds.