WASHINGTON, DC. – The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) applauds the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for passing the Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America (INVEST in America) Act early this morning.
ASCE thanks Chairman Peter DeFazio for his efforts to bring forward a transformative long-term surface transportation reauthorization. We are encouraged that the legislation addresses the growing challenges facing our roads, bridges, and transit systems. The bill provides a vital increase in funding levels to address project backlogs, ensures much-needed program stability, and gives added attention to safety, the impacts of climate change, and resiliency.
These investments will help address the key issues facing our nation’s surface transportation infrastructure and tackle the ten-year $1.2 trillion surface transportation funding gap that was identified in ASCE’s 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, which assigned our nation’s bridges a grade of ‘C’, and roads a ‘D’, citing that 7.5% of the nation’s bridges are in poor condition while 40% of the nation’s roadways are in poor or mediocre condition.
Now that both the Senate Environment and Public Works and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committees have passed their versions of surface transportation legislation, we urge the full Congress to act before the current authorization expires on September 30th.
The time to act is now. Congress must finalize a robust, comprehensive and long-term reauthorization this summer to allow state and local agencies to move forward with critical projects across the country to modernize our nation’s road, bridge and transit systems.
