The House of Representatives is expected to vote tomorrow on the “Investing in a New Vision for the Environment and Surface Transportation in America (INVEST in America) Act.”
Americans for Tax Reform urges lawmakers to oppose the INVEST ACT and vote “No.”
House Democrats have taken what is normally a strongly bipartisan surface transportation reauthorization process and turned it into a grab bag of wasteful spending on progressive priorities.
This bill would spend $547 billion over 5 years, a 34% increase above current baseline spending while also bringing back earmarks for the first time since 2011.
Section 107 of the bill lists 1,473 “Member-designated projects” that would receive $5.7 billion in additional funding. This is the exact type of wasteful spending that resulted in public outrage from voters and led to the House moratorium on earmarks in 2011.
This legislation is filled with provisions unrelated to infrastructure meant to be a down payment on President Biden’s Leftist climate agenda.
Democrats included roughly $20 billion on climate provisions, $8.4 billion for a Carbon Pollution Reduction Program and $4 billion for the “Clean Corridors program” to use taxpayer money building electric vehicle charging stations for wealthy EV owners.
Democrats also include several new burdensome regulations into this bill. Section 8202 would “rescind any special permit or approval for the transport of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by rail tank car” designed to make it more difficult for natural gas to be transported. Section 4301 would require limo drivers to have a new commercial driver’s license (CDL) in order for drivers to work.
House Democrats even managed to sneak a few “woke” provisions into their infrastructure bill, including $20 million for “Implicit bias research and training grants” for institutions of higher learning. Here it is straight from the text:
Section 3010: “Establishes a discretionary grant program available to institutions of higher education for research, development, technology transfer, and training activities in the operation or establishment of an implicit bias training program as it relates to racial profiling at traffic stops. Authorizes $20 million annually to be appropriated for the program out of the general fund.
Congress should not be engaged in such gross level of wasteful spending at a time when inflation is a growing national concern. Democrats have simply slapped the word “infrastructure” onto their progressive tax and spend agenda in hopes of tricking taxpayers.
Americans for Tax Reform urges all Members to oppose the INVEST Act and vote NO.