As President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure measure remains up in the air in the U.S. House, our Coalition this week launched an outreach effort to Pennsylvania’s members of Congress to encourage them to support the plan.
The measure passed comfortably in the Senate last month, but it faces a tougher challenge in the House, where it could be held hostage by members who threaten to vote against it unless a separate $3.5 trillion budget bill is also approved, while another faction is determined to defeat the budget bill as being too expensive.
Much of the funding in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package should have been coming to Pennsylvania following passage of Act 89. Consequently, upgrading our transportation infrastructure will be more expensive than it would have been years ago.
In any event, it reinforces the idea that our Coalition membership was wise to stay together even after Act 89 was approved nearly eight years ago. Since then, we have focused considerable effort on advocating for increased funding at the federal level.
We hope to see our efforts bear fruit before the new federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.
Be of Good Cheer,
— The Wolff
TRANSPORTATION ISSUE UPDATE
- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has directed committee leaders to resolve differences with their Senate counterparts this week regarding the $3.5 trillion social spending plan.
- Leaders from the business community and a state senator are urging the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the $1 trillion infrastructure plan when it returns to session next week.
- On Friday, August 27, a Beam Signing and Topping Off Ceremony celebrated the placement of the top piece of steel in the new structure underway at the corner of 3rd and Galloway.
- With the new bridge over the Susquehanna River ready for paving, PennDOT says the northern section of the Central Susquehanna Valley Transportation project may be open for traffic by next fall.
- Although you’ve driven past thousands of highway signs in your life, you probably never stopped to think about the big, white typeface on them. It turns out some folks at Penn State actually were thinking about highway sign typefaces.
- A new report finds that the wear and tear on our highway system has greater costs than were previously understood, implying a need for more transportation infrastructure investment, especially for road maintenance.