A House Appropriations subcommittee approved a one-year bill May 21 to fund the Department of Transportation through fiscal year 2027. Current DOT funding expires Sept. 30.
The bill passed on a 9-7 party vote. It cuts public transit funding by 22 percent and Amtrak funding by 69 percent, compared to fiscal year 2026 enacted levels, according to an analysis by the American Public Transportation Association.
Their goal is to continue funding at some level while work continues on the five-year surface transportation legislation, the sources said.
The bill sets public transit funding at $16.5 billion for fiscal year 2027 and cuts capital investment grant funding by 78 percent to $737 million. According to APTA, cities are requesting $31 billion in CIG funds in fiscal year 2026 and beyond for 49 construction projects in 23 states.
The appropriations bill provides $1.5 billion for Amtrak’s national network and $650 million for the Northeast Corridor. Cuts funding for the Federal-State Partnership for Interurban Passenger Railroad program, which was intended to expand or add new passenger rail service.
Competition for federal funding
Transportation is competing for dollars with housing in the 2027 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill and related agencies, Brittney Kohler, legislative director of transportation and infrastructure at the National League of Cities, told Smart Cities Dive.
The news is better for cities and metropolitan planning organizations. “We saw some really positive moves that we hope to see expanded, but they’re certainly a good start,” Kohler said.
“The biggest win was definitely the need for bridging funding,” he added. “Not only will this Congress allocate a historic amount of funding to bridges, but it will dedicate 25 percent to local bridges.”
In the end, it boils down to, “What does Congress want to bring to their districts?” Kohler said.
Bipartisan Surface Transportation Advances Bill
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on May 22 approved HR 8870, the BUILD America 250 Act, by a vote of 62-2, providing a blueprint for the next five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill.
The 1,005-page legislation invests in bridges, rail safety and other infrastructure programs. The bill also creates a new supplemental funding stream for the Highway Trust Fund in the form of an annual registration fee of $130 for electric vehicles and a fee of $35 for hybrid vehicles.
U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., said in a statement that the act “will create good-paying jobs while restoring aging bridges, repairing crumbling roads and supporting safe and accessible rail, transit and bicycle infrastructure.”
Not everyone agrees.
Transit, passenger rail see lower funding
“While there is a lot of good policy in this bill, if enacted, it is highly unlikely to significantly improve passenger rail in the US over the five-year life of the bill,” said Sean Jeans-Gail, vice president of government affairs and policy at the Rail Passengers Association in a published analysis of the bill.
The five-year bill authorizes $63.9 billion for rail programs, including Amtrak, rail crossing improvements and other programs, but the funds are not guaranteed as they were under the Jobs and Infrastructure Investment Act of 2021. Instead, funding will be decided each year through the appropriations process. “That means he expects the Appropriations Committees to use the annual budget process to find about $13 billion a year for rail programs when appropriators have consistently struggled to stay above $3 billion,” Jeans-Gail said.
In a press release, Kevin Shen, senior analyst for the Clean Transportation Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the act “slams more roads while robbing the multitude of sustainable and affordable transportation options the country needs.”
According to an analysis of the bill by Steve Davis, assistant vice president of transportation strategy for Smart Growth America, guaranteed funding for transit increases from $91.2 billion in the IIJA to $87.6 billion, while guaranteed funding for roads increases from $351 billion to $376 billion.
Broad support for the BUILD America 250 Act
The surface transportation bill has many supporters.
The Governors Highway Safety Association said in a May 19 letter to committee leaders that it welcomes the combination of two safety grants into one program, which would “give states greater flexibility to make data-driven investments focused on achieving measurable safety outcomes and remove existing barriers to working with local communities.”
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials said on May 20 that the bill “reflects many of AASHTO’s core policy principles, such as streamlining programs with common goals, improving the efficiency of environmental review and permitting processes to expedite project delivery, and maintaining formula-based federal funding to states.”
As for industry, construction engineering firm AECOM said in a May 19 letter, “We are particularly pleased to see increased investments in the bill that will continue the momentum of recent years, providing security to state and local governments as they move forward with their own infrastructure investments.”
Trade associations and unions expressed their support for the act in a May 22 press release. “Critically, the bill strengthens protections for workers in active construction zones that will help ensure our working men and women can return home safely when the job is done,” the Transportation Construction Coalition stated.
The five-year bill will advance to the House and Senate at some point on its long road to passage this year. “All that matters at the end of the day, especially when we’re talking about transportation, is, can you see the investment we’ve made that made a difference in people’s lives?” Kohler said.
