Introduction of the Bicycle Commuter Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, during Bike to Work Week and in advance of Bike to Work Day, today I am introducing the Bicycle Commuter Act of 2023.

The bicycle's value on one's physical and mental health, to say nothing of the health of our communities, is more apparent than ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. For years, I've said that the bicycle is the most efficient form of urban transportation ever devised. Communities across the country are getting on board with this sentiment and substantially investing in building better, safer bike networks and improving facilities for biking to work. While rates of biking to work have increased by more than two-thirds since 2000, only 0.4 percent of workers biked to work in 2021. Congress has the opportunity to increase mode share and, critically, not penalize one mode of transportation over another.

Unfortunately, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (P.L. 115-97), suspended the previously available bicycle commuting reimbursement benefit through 2025, taking away a valuable financial incentive for people who choose to bike to work. The Bicycle Commuter Act reverses the bicycle commuter benefit's suspension in Public Law 115-97 and changes the structure of the benefit by making the benefit a pre-tax benefit, allowing employees to receive a bicycle benefit of up to 30 percent of the parking benefit, allowing the bicycle benefit to be used in concert with the transit and parking benefits, and adding bikeshare and scootershare as eligible for the benefit and clarifying that electric bikes are eligible.

I thank Senator Brown for his leadership on this legislation in the Senate. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to advance this critical effort for the health and wellbeing of the American public, our communities, and our planet.

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