By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Northern Missouri Congressman Sam Graves says Congress has broken with tradition, imperiling the money needed for road construction.
Graves, the top Republican on the House Tansportation and Infrastructure Committee, points out the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill now stuck in Congress began as the extension of the transportation bill.
“I have actually supported three surface transportation, infrastructure bills now that have been signed into law since the beginning,” Graves tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “All three were under Republican chairmen. All three were under both Democrat and Republican presidents and all three were bipartisan bills.”
Graves, who has been in Congress since 2000, says the transportation bill never topped $400 billion, until this year.
Graves says the House approach in the past was to have the top Republicans and Democrats on the committee agree to a bill before moving it to the full House.
“This year, they completely walk away from that process,” according to Graves. “We had an extraordinarily partisan bill that came out of the House committee. It was right down party lines and then it went to the floor of the House and it was right down party lines and, again, the easiest bill in Washington to get agreement on is highways; traditional infrastructure.”
This bill contains more than 2,500 pages. It covers more than roads and bridges. It would spend $65 billion on broadband upgrades and $21 billion on environmental remediation, among other additions to the traditional Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act.
Even with those additions, even with the vastly increased price tag, the bill would pass, according to Graves, if passage were not tied to passage of the larger measure.
“Let’s say the bill came to the floor and it was just strictly the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that had all the human infrastructure and everything in it, too. It would probably pass,” Graves says. “It would get enough support to pass, but when they tie this $3 ½ or $4 trillion spending proposal and tax proposal with it, again, it’s holding it hostage.”
Graves says both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden have tied the two bills together and are holding the line on Democrats, forcing them to accept the bills in tandem.