On February 27, the U.S. House passed President Biden’s $1.9T COVID-relief bill by a 219-212 vote, mostly along party lines. The measure is now soon to be considered by the Senate. On the infrastructure front, the package would provide: $30 billion to public transit programs, $8 billion to airports and $1.5 billion to Amtrak. The vast majority of those funds would go to maintaining existing operations, not capital construction. The measure would also provide $350 billion for state and local governments.
The state and local funding would be distributed as follows:
- $195.3B to state governments. Each state will receive $500M, and the remaining $169B will be divided up according to each state’s share of national unemployed workers.
- $130B to local governments. This funding is split evenly between cities (divided by Community Development Block Grant formula) and counties (divided by population).
- $20B to Tribal Governments
- $4.5B to Territorial Governments
While some have pointed to this funding as a means of funding new construction investment projects, the way it is spent is left to state and local governments to decide. At a minimum, that funding could help prevent public owners from delaying or canceling construction projects. AGC will continue to monitor this measure’s status and will continue to encourage the Biden Administration and Congress to prioritize broad and robust public and private infrastructure investment.