Infrastructure programs remain in limbo

There is a race against the clock as existing federal spending agreement set to expire

Nearly three months after President Joe Biden signed a roughly $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill into law, federal transportation officials say much of their work is on hold — stuck in limbo as a result of an unresolved congressional fight over federal spending.

The result is billions of dollars unable to be spent, blunting the immediate impact of one of President Biden’s signature accomplishments.

“A significant portion of our highway, transit and safety programs are limited” by caps in the existing federal budget, said Carlos Monje Jr., the Transportation Department’s third-highestranking official. “Without congressional actions, we aren’t going to be able to move on many of the new programs funded in the bill.”

Among them is $1.2 billion to help reduce carbon emissions and $1.4 billion to protect roads and bridges against the effects of climate change.

And while the Federal Railroad Administration is in line to receive $66 billion in the next five years, Monje said the agency can’t hire the staff it needs to manage the significant infusion of money.

Some states, meanwhile, are putting off projects until Congress approves $9 billion in additional highway money.

The issues stem from what Monje called a “wonderful dance” between lawmakers who authorize federal spending and those who appropriate the money.

The infrastructure bill authorized the money to be spent, but in many cases, it still needs a second round of approval in the form of an appropriation.

Congress hasn’t been able to agree on spending for the budget year that began in October, and instead has been rolling forward last year’s appropriations. That approach does not include the increase in transportation spending.

The Transportation Department’s budget is not being held up over any dispute tied to the agency’s funding, and with promised money on hold, frustration is rising among lawmakers who helped shape the infrastructure package, federal officials and groups representing segments of the transportation industry. A Friday bridge collapse in Pittsburgh served to heighten the urgency of restoring the nation’s infrastructure.

The delay, a coalition of more than 60 transportation industry groups wrote to congressional leaders Monday, is “wholly unacceptable and will cause significant project disruptions, reduced construction and manufacturing employment, and delays in delivering critical transportation infrastructure improvements — just when Americans were promised the most ambitious infrastructure package of our time.”

There is a race against the clock on Capitol Hill because the existing federal spending agreement is set to expire Feb. 18. By that point, lawmakers must pass another short-term measure, known as a continuing resolution, or come to a deal on a larger plan. If they don’t, the United States government — public-works projects and all — would come to a halt.

Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate began talks at the end of last year, hoping to finance federal operations perhaps until the end of the fiscal year, which concludes Sept. 30. Both sides have expressed a desire to reach a deal and avert a showdown.

Yet lawmakers long have been divided over the specifics of the budget. Democrats hope to approve massive boosts to federal domestic agencies, no longer capped by a law that limited such spending for a decade.

To that end, Rep. Rosa DeLauro. D-Conn., the House’s top appropriator, led her party toward approving about a dozen spending bills that financed Biden’s proposals to expand federal health care, education and science programs.