Airport Alert: House Committee Moving Forward with Pieces of $3.5 Trillion Reconciliation Package
September 10, 2021
Following passage in the Senate and House earlier this summer of a budget resolution that sets the parameters for consideration of a massive $3.5 trillion package of Democratic spending and tax priorities, committees in the House and Senate are busy assembling their respective pieces of the so-called Build Back Better reconciliation measure.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I) is weighing up to $60 billion for various transportation-related priorities not included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (BIB). Included in the package is a new, Alternative Fuel and Low Emissions Aviation Technology Program, which would provide $1 billion for the Department of Transportation to support investments for projects that develop, demonstrate, or apply low-emission aviation technologies or produce, transport, blend, or store sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). This comes after yesterday's announcement from the Biden Administration that it plans to prioritize SAF as a way to cut aviation emissions. Separately, the House Ways and Means Committee is considering including a SAF blender's tax credit in their portion of the reconciliation package to help cut costs and rapidly scale domestic production.
Additionally, the House Energy and Commerce Committee (E&C), which is responsible for doling out up to $486.5 billion, is prioritizing a slew of new spending related to healthcare and tackling climate change. One area the committee is focusing on is electric vehicle infrastructure, where it plans to allocate up to $13.5 billion to develop an electric vehicle charging network to assist the transition to zero emissions vehicles. This funding will go towards construction of charging infrastructure in a number of areas, including publicly accessible locations. Notably, the BIB also includes $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging: however, that funding is focused on facilitating long-distance travel, with an emphasis on rural disadvantaged, and hard-to-reach communities.
The budget resolutions that passed in both the House and Senate last month tasked House and Senate committees with completing their sections of the massive, reconciliation bill by a target date of September 15. As such, both T&I and E&C have set their respective dates to markup their sections for early next week. We will know more details about exactly how the committees plan to allocate their funding once those markups are complete and will provide updates accordingly.
