After months of negotiations and stalemates, President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act (IIJA) – also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF) this past Monday, November 15th after it had been approved by the House of Representatives earlier in the month. The legislation includes a 5-year reauthorization of all federal surface transportation programs (including those supporting transit) as well as authorizes those funding levels each year from fiscal year 2022 through 2025 – an unprecedented action for transportation legislation in pairing authorization and appropriation together in one bill (
see details here).
In terms of the IIJA's impacts for transit, nearly all programs will increase in investment by 40 percent – a tremendous sign of support for public transit across the country following the COVID pandemic, where our industry's essential role in serving our communities was never more apparent. A chart showing the FY 2022 funding levels by program is provided at right, prepared by Jeff Davis of the Eno Foundation.
Since the Senate chose to largely maintain the policy structures of the previous FAST Act to make passage easier in their chamber, few of the policy changes SWTA and others advocated for that were contained in the INVEST Act previously passed by the House of Representatives made it into the IIJA/BIF. However, one that did that was the direct result of SWTA's voice alongside that of the Oklahoma Transit Association's in working from staff at Senator James Inhofe's office, in particular, was a change allowing transit providers to sell vehicles past their useful life at a price greater than $5,000. The provision will allow agencies selling these vehicles to keep up to the amount of the local share originally contributed at the time of purchase. We'll share more details on this beneficial change with SWTA members soon, along with other aspects of the IIJA/BIF.