House Transportation Chair Sam Graves is targeting April 29 as the markup date for the surface transportation reauthorization bill and is negotiating a top-line number, he told POLITICO Wednesday.
While a final top-line number has yet to be agreed on, the Missouri Republican said he has a ballpark figure. “I’m gonna say it’s gonna be somewhere in the neighborhood of $550 billion or $500 billion — somewhere in there. That will be our number. We’re still actually — believe it or not — negotiating that,” Graves said.
That $550 billion total number being discussed for what is also known as the highway bill would be a combination of authorizations and contract authority for a five-year span.
If that number holds, the bill would be well below the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, which totaled $1.2 trillion, with $550 billion of that going to new federal spending for roads, bridges, transit, broadband, resilience and water infrastructure. Graves has said he wants the upcoming bill to be more traditional than the previous one with more focus on roads and bridges.
