House passes roughly $760 billion transportation and water bill, making its pitch on infrastructure

Ian Duncan and Michael Laris, The Washington Post

WASHINGTON - The House passed a roughly $760 billion transportation and water infrastructure bill Thursday, a measure that stakes out the chamber's position in a debate over how to rebuild the nation's roads, transit networks, water pipes and sewers.

The package provides $343 billion for roads, bridges and safety programs, $109 billion for transit agencies and $95 billion for rail. It also includes $117 billion for drinking water programs and $51 billion for wastewater infrastructure. Amendments adopted over two days of debate added at least $44 billion to the bill's price tag, mostly to support the adoption of electric vehicles.

The bill passed 221-201, with two Republicans joining Democrats in support.

Much of the debate over infrastructure has played out between President Biden and negotiators in the Senate, who outlined a bipartisan plan last week. But Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said this week the spending envisioned in that bipartisan plan and the House bill were close enough that he saw the potential for an agreement.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the House's Invest in America Act represents her chamber's effort to seize a "once-in-a-century opportunity to rebuild America's infrastructure," while working to lift the middle class, help the environment and focus on equity.

The bill, written by Democrats, is weighted more heavily in favor of rail than the bipartisan plan, while pitching less for roads. DeFazio said he could support more money for roads and hoped that would encourage senators to back more money for trains.

"What their framework lacks is policy," DeFazio said. "My bill is the transformative policy that the Biden administration wants."

That is where aligning the dueling proposals could prove tricky. The White House has aggressively promoted the new Senate framework, but also has endorsed the House bill. Both sides of Congress remain divided on how money might be spent and how central climate change should be to infrastructure investments. During House debate, Republicans lined up to criticize the bill's environmental provisions.

Congress typically takes up transportation funding bills every five years or so, approving federal programs that send money to state agencies to fund roads, buses and rail lines. The most recent approval is set to expire on Sept. 30. But with infrastructure at the top of the White House's agenda this year, the bill has taken on outsize significance.

In a sign of the delicate dynamics between the chambers, Pelosi praised the bipartisan framework while reiterating that a Senate bill embodying that framework would be taken up in the House only after specifics of a separate far-reaching budget bill with other priorities of President Biden's are clear.

"Our caucus is very, very pleased with the bipartisan agreement that the president was able to achieve working with Democrats and Republicans in the Senate," Pelosi said. "There are many good features to it in terms of numbers, but not policy."

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is leading efforts to draft the legislative text to transform the bipartisan infrastructure framework into a bill. Senate aides said drafters are stitching together contributions from key Senate committees, including elements of bipartisan bills they have passed, as well as information from the 10 senators who reached the bipartisan deal, and the Biden administration.

Schumer has said he wants the Senate to consider both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the broader, partisan budget bill in July. Given the time frame, DeFazio on Wednesday suggested that Senate leaders rely heavily on the House bill.

"I said . . . it took my staff seven months to write the policy. I don't know how quickly you can write policy over there," DeFazio said. He urged drafters to "adopt significant portions" of the House bill and parts of bills passed by the Senate's Commerce Committee and Environment and Public Works Committee.

The House bill includes measures designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, to hold states accountable for emissions on their roads, and to promote electric cars and buses. It would require states to consider alternatives such as transit before widening highways, and provides $14.5 billion for projects that would reduce carbon emissions or make transportation networks more resistant to extreme weather.

The House voted to add to the bill a $36 billion section on electric vehicles. It would fund charging infrastructure, provide grants to spur manufacturing and set deadlines for the federal vehicle fleet to switch to zero-emission vehicles and plug-in hybrids.

Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., who sponsored the section, said in a statement it features equity provisions "ensuring that communities like those in my District are well-positioned to benefit from the transition to a clean energy economy."

The bill's transit funding is aimed at reducing a maintenance backlog and helping agencies provide more regular service. The bill proposes tripling funding for Amtrak to $32 billion and includes a grant fund, boosted to $30 billion, that could be used to develop high-speed rail projects.

It also includes a $45 billion fund to replace all lead water lines across the country.

Debate on the bill reflected partisan divisions and contrasting visions.

"Members on the other side have said they don't want another traditional highway bill, but we can't abandon our roads and bridges just to say we want something new," said Missouri Rep. Sam Graves, the Transportation Committee's ranking Republican. "Our core infrastructure has become traditional because Americans depend on it to work and to travel and to live."

Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) said the bill would both fix highways and "do something as new and as bold today as the interstate highway system was in the 1950s," including investing in electric-vehicle charging and rail.

"And please don't tell New Jersey commuters they're riding the Green New Deal to work every day," he said. "They just want better trains that will get there faster than they did 100 years ago."

The White House issued a formal statement of support Monday for the Invest in America Act, saying it "lays a strong foundation for achieving the President's vision on infrastructure."

At the same time, Biden traveled Tuesday to Wisconsin to promote the bipartisan framework. The White House says that approach also would fulfill its goals of improving the environment and creating new jobs, but details of how the money would be spent haven't been filled in.

He pointed to a $66 billion investment in passenger and freight rail that he said would "reduce the largest source of pollution in America: vehicle travel."

"This deal also makes the largest investment in public transit in American history," Biden said. "We're not just tinkering around the edges here."

Despite bipartisan support for increasing rail spending, leading Republicans have made it clear they oppose many of the environmental rules in the House bill.

"At every turn the majority has ensured that infrastructure programs become climate change programs," Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said Monday during a meeting of the House's Rules Committee. "New environmental mandates, Green New Deal-like provisions will snarl construction projects. Provisions that prioritize mass transit over roads will force rural districts like my own to spend funding in ineffective ways rather than on the road improvements we so desperately need."

For DeFazio, the environmental provisions are in many ways the heart of the bill. He pointed to this week's heat wave that pushed temperatures in his home state above 110 degrees.

"I heard from my Republican colleague in [the Rules Committee] last night, 'climate change provisions don't belong in a transportation bill.' Seriously?" DeFazio said. "The largest source of fossil fuel pollution in the United States is transportation."

The version of the bill that passed the House does not include revenue-raising provisions typically included to help fund transportation spending. DeFazio said he expected they would be ironed out once the House and Senate began working together on a final version of the bill.

The bipartisan framework includes ideas on how to cover the cost, such as ramping up tax enforcement and reusing coronavirus relief money, but experts have questioned whether those proposals would bring in enough money.

A developer wants to remake a blighted New Haven site. First pollution must be cleaned up.

Mark Zaretsky

NEW HAVEN — A century or more ago, the old Bigelow Boiler Co. factory complex on River Street was a big deal, employing hundreds of people in the city’s Fair Haven neighborhood.

Now it’s a big mess — one the city for decades has sought to clean up and get back on the tax rolls. And while the city had to demolish part of the property a few years ago when it got too far gone, cleanup slowly is happening on the buildings that remain, officials said.

A restoration company, G.L. Capasso, headed by Carmine Capasso, has long been interested in the property and has been renovating and marketing buildings for office and light industrial use as the remediation gets done, said Economic Development Administrator Michael Piscitelli and Helen Rosenberg, a city economic development officer.

“These are old, historic buildings,” Piscitelli said. “We do the brownfields and he renovates the buildings and leases them.”

So far, “over 200 new jobs have moved in over the last two years” in addition to longtime Fair Haven businesses such as Phoenix Press, Fair Haven Furniture and others that have moved in in recent years, he said.

The effort at the Bigelow site took a big step forward with the state’s recent approval of a $646,500 grant to remediate and clean up a portion of the complex at 198 River St.

The Bigelow Boiler Co. “began operations on that site I think ... around the late 1860s, and over time it grew and it grew and it grew,” said Rosenberg.

Bigelow Boiler, owned by Hobart Bigelow, made huge industrial furnaces that were shipped around the world, while his Pipe Bending Co. made the tubes needed for those boilers.

The remediation involves “mainly metals that are behind the buildings” as well as “an old junkyard on the property,” said Piscitelli. “It’s complicated because the bulkhead is deteriorated,” but “this grant takes us almost the whole way home on the brownfield side of things.

“We’re optimistic,” he said. “This is a big step forward. It provides an opportunity and an avenue” to eventually get the entire property done, Piscitelli said.

Capasso previously renovated other parts of the complex, but “now we’re trying to clean up the whole site,” said Rosenberg.

“Were looking for $3.5 million from the state to clean up the whole property,” she said. But in the meantime, “we decided to do it in a piecemeal way.”

As part of the same state grant program, which in the latest round included funding to remediate 31 blighted properties in 23 cities and towns, New Haven also received $75,000 for environmental assessments needed prior to conversion of a former auto repair garage site at 156-158 Humphrey St. into a 12-unit housing complex.

Back in 2007, “we signed a lease with Capasso for 34 Lloyd St.,” which was adjacent to the complex, Rosenberg said. “The deal was that when we got money to clean up that property, then we would sell it to him. He bought it a few years ago.”

The latest work “is behind what’s known as Building 2, the biggest building, and Capasso will renovate that building and lease to others,” Rosenberg said. She said Capasso has a likely tenant lined up.

Years ago, the city created nine redevelopment parcels on the 25 acres of vacant and underutilized land within the total 53-acre River Street project area.

Capasso renovated and maintained the 13,200-square-foot building at 34 Lloyd St. and has been running his business out of it since 2008. A similar arrangement is in place for 198 River St., where the city will enter into a $1 lease arrangement with Bigelow Square LLC, an affiliate of Capasso.

The most deteriorated structures on the property were demolished in 2015 and the remaining buildings were abated and secured.

“Capasso has the experience and the motivation to renovate those buildings in a thorough and timely manner and work with the city on bringing attractive uses, new employment and taxes to the community,” read the resolution that the City Plan Commission approved and sent to the Board of Alders at the time.

Decision on Torrington solar array to come before Nov. 2

BY BRUNO MATARAZZO JR. REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

TORRINGTON — The state Siting Council has announced it will make a decision on the proposed solar array on a 212-acre parcel of land in Torrington and Litchfield no later than Nov. 2.

SR Litchfield is proposing a 19.8-megawatt AC solar electric generating facility on six contiguous parcels in the two towns. The solar field developers had been planning for approval earlier, with a timeline that would see construction begin this summer. The project involves clearing land and grading work, and was expected to last through 2022.

The announcement comes after an attorney representing the project developers submitted a revised site layout plan to the council by reducing the number of modules needed to produce the amount of power in its agreements with Eversource Energy and United Illuminating Co.

The developers are reducing the number of modules by using South Korean-based Hanwha QCell’s newest models of solar panels. The new panels will reduce the amount of land that would be disturbed by more than 25%, according to the attorney, Jonathan Schaefer.

If approved, the energy produced would be sold to Eversource and United Illuminating through power-sharing agreements already approved by the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.

The deal with the energy companies is for 20 years and the panels are expected to function for the same period.

Nashville-based Silicon Ranch, the entity behind SR Litchfield, has seen its portfolio grow in recent years, with approximately 880 megawatts in solar energy that are contracted, under construction or operating in 14 states from New York to California, according to a company news release from earlier this year announcing its $217 million investment from Shell.