What’s After The Investment in Infrastructure and Jobs Act?

By Jim Mathews / President & CEO

Yesterday I appeared alongside seven other passenger-rail stakeholders before the senior staffs of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, and I was pleasantly surprised and pleased that all of us were united urging T&I to keep a rail title in the next version of the surface transportation authorization bill.

Dropping the rail title – which would, in effect, return us to the bad old days when the surface bill was really just “the highway bill” – would force rail authorizations to proceed through the Congress as a separate measure, and in a Congress that has trouble moving bills as it is, that would be a disaster for rail policy. When stakeholders learned that dropping the rail title was beginning to surface as an idea among T&I members, all of us pushed back together, despite our varying interests. It was a very encouraging moment.

Your Association professional staff continues to develop ideas for what comes next for the surface reauthorization after the Investment in Infrastructure and Jobs Act, or IIJA, expires in 2026, and T&I staff asked us to offer a preview of our priorities as they begin work on the reauthorization process.

The key message we delivered was this: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act must not be treated as a one-time infusion. It took a four-decade Federal commitment to build the Interstate Highway System. Likewise, the U.S. interstate passenger rail network can’t succeed without a strong Federal partner willing to invest across multiple authorization cycles. A one-off would be just another policy failure. The primary goal for passenger rail in the reauthorization should be building on the foundation of the rail programs introduced across the last four reauthorization cycles.

I told the staff that a strong rail title isn’t just about rail. It’s about making the whole transportation system work better. Freight and passenger rail both intersect with our roads, ports, and communities. Whether it’s unclogging supply chains, expanding passenger service, improving grade crossing safety, or reducing congestion, rail plays a vital role. We think a strong rail title is vital to speed up the planning and implementation process and lower project costs.

Most of what we plan to submit formally involves streamlining processes and regulations, making it easier for leaders in the rail business community to plan, invest, and thrive.

But during my in-person discussion, I underscored four points.

First was funding and certainty. There’s overwhelming demand for intercity passenger rail investment—from States, regional rail authorities, private operators, and short lines. Every one of the IIJA’s grant programs was oversubscribed by very large margins. So I urged Congress to maintain the IIJA’s investment levels in all the core rail grant programs.

But equally critical is long-term certainty. Today, states must spend millions in local taxpayer dollars just to apply for Federal discretionary grants—grants with no guarantee of funding. Without stable, predictable support, states can’t plan or invest effectively, particularly in rural areas and regions not already served by legacy rail corridors.

That’s why we’re calling for the introduction of some level of direct funding to States for passenger rail. That should help them build the administrative capacity needed to develop and operate new service. We don’t necessarily call it “formula funding,” to keep the distinction between this and regular highway funding. But regardless of the vocabulary word, we think replacing overreliance on discretionary grants with more predictable funding will empower states as full partners in a national passenger rail strategy.

States for Passenger Rail shared this view in their prepared presentation yesterday, and we were happy to echo those ideas.

Our second big point centered on streamlining permitting and reviews. Many of you have heard me say this in public speeches, and I’ll say it again here: It takes far, far too long to build things, anything, in the U.S. I can start a new airline with five planes and $3 million in six to eight months, but if I want to start new rail service – in places where trains already run today – I’ll have to wait ten years or more and come up with many billions of dollars. That’s one of the reasons why we support streamlining the review, permitting, and service development process. Specific reforms we offered yesterday include:

• A “shot clock” for Environmental Impact Statements and reviews;
• An expedited update process for corridor studies that have gone stale, and;
• Exempting corridor development from discretionary reviews when operating over Class 4 Track and higher.

We’re also asking Congress to direct the Federal Railroad Administration to adopt performance-based standards creating incentives for standardized infrastructure elements like stations, signaling, and rolling stock. As we heard from many of our industry briefers during our Washington, D.C., advocacy workshops two weeks ago, standardization can cut manufacturing costs, speed delivery, and enhance interoperability — critical for a growing national network.

Our third emphasis area was implementing the Long-Distance Service Study. The IIJA directed FRA to evaluate restoring discontinued or non-daily Amtrak long-distance routes. The result is a national vision that could connect 43 million more Americans—9 million in rural communities—and expand service to 34 states, 61 new metro areas, 74 medical centers, 75 national parks, and over 3,200 colleges and universities.

Because this is an interstate transportation strategy that will take decades and billions to realize, we think it demands a committed Federal partner. We’ll be asking Congress to authorize a Long-Distance Service Working Group to carry this vision forward — building on the expertise and stakeholder relationships developed through the nearly two-year long study process.

The fourth idea I shared yesterday continues to draw interest from manufacturers, operators, and congressional offices: establishing a National Equipment Leasing Pool.

We’ve seen private manufacturers respond to IIJA-driven demand by expanding U.S. facilities, creating tens of thousands of jobs and beginning to build a U.S.-based supply chain of hundreds of smaller manufacturers. But uncertainty in long-term funding has stunted this investment while adding to long delivery times for operators and public agencies looking to buy new trainsets.

We know how long it will take to get long-distance replacement equipment ordered and delivered, for example. Without an adequate and competitive industrial base for designing and building railcars we’ll never have enough equipment and enough competition to respond quickly to start new services or new routes.

We think creating a National Equipment Leasing Pool would spur creation of a robust U.S. manufacturing industrial base, support thousands of new manufacturing jobs, reduce entry barriers for private operators, and address the equipment shortages limiting expansion and competition.

The reauthorization process takes a long time, and many ideas will be advanced, modified, or dropped along the way. We’re working with coalition partners to harmonize our ideas as much as possible, because speaking with as close to one voice as we can is our best chance to get another bill as great and as transformative as the IIJA.

We know that a strong rail title could help the entire transportation system work better—alleviating congestion, improving safety, and unlocking economic growth of four, six, or even seven times every dollar invested. And so the work begins...