Press Releases

U.S. Congressman Garret Graves (LA-06) released the following statement after the U.S. Department of Transportation announced this week nearly $1 billion of infrastructure grants through the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) federal grant program. (Formerly known as "BUILD" and "TIGER" grants.) Louisiana's sole share of which is $18.5 million for public transit in New Orleans.

"What is the most important transportation priority of yours? Think about that for a minute. Out of nearly $2 billion in transportation grants administered under the Biden Administration, Louisiana's only project getting funded is $18.5 million to improve fare collection for the New Orleans transit system. Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama were goose-egged on the last round of grants. Now, Louisiana is once again left scratching our head and looking around at all of the unmet road, bridge, ports and waterways, and other transportation needs. This absolutely confirms the concerns we have about giving this Administration billions of dollars to dole out when they come out and invent new criteria for infrastructure projects, ignore the law and attempt to politically manipulate transportation projects through their new prioritization criteria: environmental justice, climate change, racial equity, and enhancing union opportunities. The truth is that solid metrics for these don't even exist for road projects.

"Of the nearly billion dollars being announced this week, nearly two-thirds of it is going to Democrat districts. More than $166 million is going toward trail projects – walking and biking– while only $157 million is for ports and rail combined. Then there's a 60/40 split of the rest for highways and transit – about $390 million for highways and $262 million for transit. In here are millions of dollars for New York to ‘expand open space' and ‘engage community on health inequities.' In El Paso, they're giving money to ‘develop plans for a Deck Plaza over the sunken I-10 downtown…including amenities such as green space, public gathering space, and entertainment venues. This is supposed to be a transportation program. We sit in traffic and they get ‘green space.'

"Do these investments truly reflect America's transportation needs, or is it showing something else going on here? I wonder what the breakdown would look like if the objectives were about cutting time in traffic, reducing fuel, getting rid of potholes, or putting in roads that get you home 30 minutes faster, or any other true transportation project objective.

"Look, I love the streetcars in New Orleans but we have got to do better than this. We have to get politics out of it if we want to make a real difference for normal, everyday people. We're going to keep pushing to do that and will continue fighting to better align the historic money on the table with actual transportation needs on the ground."

Background:

Most recently, prior to the vote on infrastructure legislation (IIJA), members of Louisiana's Congressional Delegation penned a letter setting the record straight on how the bill wouldn't provide a fair return on investment to Louisiana taxpayers. Under IIJA, we injected cash infusions into urban transit programs at $170 billion. This funding built on top of the billions allocated already this year that have yet to be utilized in communities. Meaning, before seeing the results from the previous allocations, billions of aid from previous packages continues to sit unused as we dump more money into the same systems.

In June, Graves questioned how the U.S. Department of Transportation moved forward in giving nearly $1 billion in grants to transportation and infrastructure projects with subjective criteria, objectives, and goals. Graves said at the time: "Nearly $1 billion was given out this week in INFRA grants without proper criteria. We raised this issue to Secretary Buttigieg in March, and this is why we have concerns about how this Administration is running things. Not one project in Louisiana made the list despite our energy, resiliency and infrastructure priorities, or our traffic and flooding problems."

On March 25, 2021, Graves asked Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Pete Buttigieg about how under the new criteria for Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA) grants set by the current DOT, there is an apparent disregard for legal requirements in exchange for unquantifiable political objectives. The key program objectives established distort, undermine, and even contradict the objectives required by law at the time. Graves first brought the issue to Buttigieg's attention the week before March 25, 2021.

Click here to read more about INFRA grants.

Click here to read more about the RAISE grants.

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