On June 25, the House of Representatives passed—on a partisan vote of 227-194 — the FY 2020 funding bills for the U.S Departments of Transportation, Interior, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency as well as military construction agencies. While the bills provide additional resources for federal construction accounts, it is not certain if they will be realized absent a budget agreement on the topline federal funding figures for defense and non-defense spending for FY 2020.
As previously reported, the Department of Transportation programs see a slight increase in FY 2020 spending levels. The bill includes the full $46.365 billion FAST Act obligation limitation for the federal-aid highway program, a $1.1 billion increase over 2019. The bill also includes an additional $1.75 billion in general funds for the program, but this is less than the $3.25 billion additional general funds provided in FY 2019, and thus overall highway funding is down slightly from last year. Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grants are funded at $1 billion, a $100 million increase above the FY 2019 level.
Funding for other construction programs includes:
For more information, contact Sean O’Neill at oneills@agc.org or (202) 547-8892.