President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) May 27 announced an agreement to extend the federal debt limit through the 2024 elections and set defense and non-defense spending limits for Fiscal Years (FY) 2024 and 2025. The legislation will go before Congress this week, with passage in both chambers likely.

The transportation investment and policy impacts of the package are:

• Core highway, bridge, and public transportation investment commitments from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law are unchanged as they are supported by revenues from the Highway Trust Fund (HTF).  All individual program funding levels must still be finalized through the annual appropriation process.
• $3 billion of the law’s $4.6 billion per year in transit Capital Investment Grants, however, will be subject to the spending caps in the debt ceiling deal as this activity is supported by federal general funds and not the HTF.  The remaining $1.6 billion and is not subject to the caps and was appropriated as part of the infrastructure law.
• Similarly, the agreement could impact supplemental highway, bridge, public transportation, and airport investments that have come from the general fund since FY 2018.
• The package includes provisions from the ARTBA-supported BUILDER Act, a bill introduced by Rep. Garrett Graves (R-La.), that would strengthen several of the project review and approval process reforms included in the infrastructure law, including:

• • A hard, two-year deadline for the completion of National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) for major surface transportation projects, unless the relevant agency and project sponsor agree more time is needed.
  • Setting 150-page limits for most EIS documents.
  • A study of the potential benefits from digitizing the NEPA process.

The agreement also repeals what is left of the $10 billion in COVID funding for state departments of transportation that was made available as part of the FY 2021 appropriations package—$2.3 billion of the $10 billion was still available as of April 25.