Washington, D.C. — Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata is a cosponsor of a bill introduced in the House last week that would make some additional local infrastructure investments eligible for payment with unspent COVID-19 relief funds.

The bipartisan State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Fiscal Recovery, Infrastructure, and Disaster Relief Flexibility Act, H.R. 5735, is led in the House by U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) and Rep Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-GA-07). The legislation is gathering support and a companion version, S. 3011, already passed the U.S. Senate in late October, led by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX).

Specifically, the bill permits eligible governments to spend either up to $10 million or 30 percent of their total fiscal relief funding, whichever is greater, on a variety of infrastructure and other program areas, primarily in the categories of transportation, highways, roads and bridges.

“This bill is a step in the right direction and frees up some options for spending more of these federal funds for the benefit of our people,” Congresswoman Amata said. “I’m happy to cosponsor it, as it makes a good improvement that adds flexibility for our local government. I’d like to see far more funds freed up with the potential of directing them to hospital infrastructure, so I will keep working on that larger priority, while this bill adds more choices in other areas, such as roads.”

The CARES Act and the more recent American Rescue Plan Act both have some flexibility in general, but much of the funding is not currently available to be used for infrastructure projects. This bill would broaden those limits by allowing state, territory or local officials the ability to consider use of remaining COVID-19 relief dollars toward the specified infrastructure, as many states and territories have unspent funds remaining.

The legislation would enable use of these funds for the following program areas: The Territorial and Puerto Rico Highway Program, Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects, National Highway Performance Program, Bridge Investment Program, Surface Transportation Block Grant Program, Metropolitan Transportation Planning, Carbon Reduction Program, PROTECT Program, Tribal Transportation Program, Alternative Fueling Infrastructure, Federal Lands Transportation Program, RAISE Grant Program, Federal Lands Access Program, TIFIA Program, ADHS Program, Urbanized Area Formula Grants, Fixed Guideway Capital Investment Grants, Highway Safety Improvement Program, Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, National Highway Freight Program, Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program, Formula Grants for Rural Areas, State of Good Repair Grants, Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities, National Culvert Removal, Replacement, and Restoration Program, Community Development Block Grant, Bridge Replacement Rehabilitation Preservation, Protection and Construction.