Congress may have passed a historic infrastructure overhaul into law, but the fight over how it is implemented is only beginning.
On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) wrote a letter to the nation’s governors urging them to ignore the Biden administration’s guidance for how states can use federal funding for construction of highway projects.
The senators accused the Federal Highway Administration of attempting to implement “a wish list of policies not reflected in” the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which Congress passed last year on a bipartisan basis. Both McConnell and Capito, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, voted for the law.
“Nothing in the IIJA provides FHWA with the authority to dictate how states should use their federal formula funding, nor prioritizes public transit or bike paths over new roads and bridges,” the senators wrote in the letter. “The FHWA memorandum is an internal document, has no effect of law, and states should treat it as such.”
At issue is a Dec. 16 memorandum from the Federal Highway Administration outlining how the agency intends to distribute some $110 billion in additional funding to repair roads and bridges. The memo includes language Republicans often frown on, describing goals to “advance equitable access to transportation,” “help combat the climate crisis,” and prioritize “non-motorized modes and transit options.”
However, the memo also says the agency plans to “encourage and prioritize the repair, rehabilitation, reconstruction, replacement, and maintenance of existing transportation infrastructure.”
Generally, Republican lawmakers from rural areas have supported hard infrastructure projects, such as roads and bridges, whereas Democrats have sought to expand public transit and other modes of transportation, such as trains, buses and bikes.
Members of Congress aren’t the only ones up in arms about the Biden administration’s implementation of the infrastructure law. Last month, 16 GOP governors wrote a letter to Biden warning him to “not attempt to push a social agenda through hard infrastructure investments.”
“We stand ready to work with [the Office of Management and Budget] to ensure the IIJA has long lasting improvements to our nation’s infrastructure and is not plagued with burdensome, administrative red tape that will counter actual improvements and meaningful results,” the governors wrote.