Every five- or six-years Congress must reauthorize the major federal surface transportation programs, including rail, highways and infrastructure, public transit and major transportation safety programs. And 2026 is the next reauthorization deadline.
The last reauthorization was the bloated “infrastructure bill” passed in 2021 during the Biden administration. That legislation, originally targeted for around $700 billion, ended up a massive $1.2 trillion monstrosity, including green energy project giveaways, ridiculous sums for broadband buildout, and conditions dictated by labor unions and other progressive interest groups. It helped drive the “Bidenflation” that cost American households billions of dollars that they have never gotten back.
It’s crucial that the 2021 mistake not become the baseline for this year’s reauthorization. Congress must find savings everywhere possible and certainly should not tack on further unnecessary spending and giveaways to special interests.
But they might.
Something called the Railway Safety Act has been hanging around Congress ever since the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Because rail is heavily unionized, it was no surprise that Democrats have tried to use the tragedy to benefit labor unions, but then Republican Senator J.D. Vance saw it as an opportunity to burnish his populist bona fides, and has remained stubbornly supportive as vice president.
We learned during the Covid-19 pandemic that we had underestimated the importance of our supply chains, and that supply chain infrastructure should be a priority. But the Railway Safety Act would inhibit freight rail safety by requiring union-mandated crew sizes and other regulations instead of allowing railroads to adopt new technology to make railways safer.
The provisions of the Railway Safety Act, whether they appear in surface transportation reauthorization or in a giant omnibus reconciliation package, would slow down investment in modernizing our freight rail system and improving its resiliency.
Adding additional regulations and mandates have been estimated to cost the economy an estimated $30 billion in lost GDP. While it’s critical for Congress to reduce the inflated infrastructure spending level of the Biden administration, it’s even more important to not impose additional costs on a struggling economy. No one is happy with the economy right now, including voters who supported Republicans in 2024 hoping for a return to the pre-Covid Trump economy. It hasn’t shown up yet, and it certainly won’t show up if Republicans put additional pressures on the supply chain.
The Surface Transportation Reauthorization is being consider in committee this week in Washington. The draft legislation thankfully does not contain the harmful provisions of the Railway Safety Act, but proponents will attempt to add an amendment to the draft language. For the sake of the economy, here’s hoping wiser heads prevail.