Two key members of the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee recently outlined their key priorities for federal surface transportation reauthorization upon expiration of the current Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in September 2026.
[Above photo by AASHTO]
Rep. David Rouzer (R-NC), chair of the House T&I Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, and Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA), ranking member of the House T&I committee, both emphasized that they remained focused on bipartisanship in remarks at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials 2025 Washington Briefing in Washington, D.C.
“The T&I committee has been a hallmark of bipartisanship over the years, which is one reason why the bills we pass in T&I tend to endure,” explained Rep. Rouzer.
“We are going to get to work on this [surface reauthorization] early and we hope to get a bill out of the House by late summer or early fall; one that gets [federal transportation] dollars back to where we get the greatest bang for the buck,” he said.
“Also, the more we can streamline regulations, the more efficient we can make [transportation] projects, the more we will be able to invest in infrastructure,” Rep. Rouzer added. “And we will bend over backwards to make sure this is a bipartisan process. We will do that by soliciting input from the entire committee membership.”
Rep. Larsen echoed those remarks, adding that the reauthorization package within the current IIJA “tells a great infrastructure story” about how America is building.
“At hearings we are getting testimony about closing the ‘needs gap’ in transportation and where we are upgrading and building the infrastructure our country needs.” he said.
“The message is that these investments are working and that my message for these next few years is, ‘let’s keep it going’ – let’s keep transportation safe, accessible, sustainable, and resilient,” Rep. Larsen said. “Reauthorization expires in this Congress in 2026 and I am committed to work with the [Trump] administration and Rep. Graves [chairman of the House T&I committee] to enact another infrastructure bill.”
Rep. Rouzer said he hopes to elicit from his subcommittee hearings a sense of the “regulatory requirements you are dealing with – that is a particular passion of mine. I am very much interested in regulatory reform; what adds cost and slows progress.”
Rep. Larsen is focused on helping “many stakeholders” reap the benefits of transportation funds the way states do, particularly for local and tribal communities.
“The importance of funding certainty is what we consistently hear – for rail, for transit, for port assets, for intermodal connections,” he said. “We are excited about the opportunity to support all modes of transportation to move people and goods across all regions of the country in the best way possible and in the most efficient way possible.”
Rep. Larsen added that he is also “pleased to see safety as an AASHTO emphasis area under President Garrett Eucalitto – we need to focus on outcomes to ramp up safety in federal transportation investments. It can’t be just state DOTs doing that work; we need to improve safety and mobility in local and tribal areas as well.”
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