Price Statement on Transportation Authorization

Statement

Ranking Member David E. Price (NC-04) of the House Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee released the following statement about the compromise transportation authorization bill, which passed the House of Representatives Thursday afternoon.

"I am pleased that Congress has finally passed a long-term transportation authorization after a decade of primarily short-term patches. This bill, which is the product of months of bipartisan negotiation, will provide funding certainty as we work to rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges, improve safety standards for railroads and public transportation, and give states and cities the ability to plan for a smarter transportation future. The bill will also advance research into promising transportation technologies and promote innovative financing that can help leverage federal dollars. And I am pleased that the bill boosts funding for important safety measures, such as improving highway-rail grade crossings and helping commuter railroads to implement Positive Train Control, as well as enhancing federal oversight of automobile safety.

"This authorization is an important first step in addressing our transportation deficit, the hundreds of millions of dollars in productivity and maintenance costs lost by American travelers to bad roads and inefficient transit each year. But it falls well short of providing the level of funding needed to truly modernize our transportation system. We need this funding to begin work on forward-thinking projects, like major new transit and highway construction and transportation upgrades in North Carolina, instead of merely fixing the most dangerous and glaring problems. The bill also moves away from the user fee model of funding transportation infrastructure, relying on budget gimmicks rather than identifying a sustainable funding mechanism.

"Fully investing in infrastructure is an economic imperative -- it will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and vastly improve the flow of commerce. This investment shortfall is holding us back, and I will continue fighting for more robust transportation funding during the Appropriations process."

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