In the wake of President Obama’s discussion of infrastructure investment in last week’s State of the Union Address, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held its first hearing of the year this week, with Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx testifying on reauthorization of funding for the nation’s highway and transit programs. Funding for these programs will run out at the end of May 2015. Senators did not commit to any specific proposals, but members on both sides of the aisle agreed that finding funding for transportation infrastructure should be one of the major priorities for the Congress this year.
Also this week, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) introduced legislation that would spend $1 trillion on infrastructure improvements over the next five years. The legislation is unlikely to be taken seriously by Senate Republicans, especially considering that Senator Sanders did not give any ideas on how to fund this increased infrastructure spending. A recent report by the Congressional Budget Office found that Congress will need to find an additional $73 billion in revenue to simply keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent for the next five years.