D.C. Delegate Introduces Obama’s Transportation Bill
A Republican congressman and the nonvoting Democratic delegate from the District of Columbia have teamed up to introduce a bill in the House that incorporates President Obama’s $302 billion transportation funding plan to be paid for with corporate tax reform.
Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), who as a Washington, D.C., delegate can vote in committee but not in the full House, said that at her request Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) introduced the bill June 12, listing her as the co-sponsor.
Norton is the ranking member, and Petri the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.
Norton said in a statement that the bill was being introduced as “a courtesy at the request of the administration.”
The president’s plan is the GROW AMERICA Act, for Generating Renewal, Opportunity, and Work with Accelerated Mobility, Efficiency, and Rebuilding of Infrastructure and Communities throughout America Act.
A four-year plan, it would be underwritten in part by repatriating profits that American corporations keep overseas to avoid taxes.
Norton said that she prefers a six-year bill with a higher spending level but that the administration’s bill “is a timely contribution as Congress works towards passage of a long-term surface transportation authorization, and should provide guidance and ideas as we develop legislation to set the future course of these vital programs.”
The administration’s plan “recognizes that we have fallen behind and calls for increasing investments in modernizing the nation’s roads, bridges, railways and transit systems,” she said. “We cannot address our infrastructure deficit by just continuing to provide baseline levels of funding.”
