Underwood-Backed Legislation to Rebuild America's Infrastructure Passes the House | Representative Lauren Underwood
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Underwood-Backed Legislation to Rebuild America's Infrastructure Passes the House

July 1, 2020

The Moving Forward Act invests more than $4.7 billion over five years to rebuild roads and bridges, expand access to reliable internet, and support clean energy in communities across Illinois

WASHINGTON— Today, Representative Lauren Underwood (IL-14) announced the passage of legislation she strongly supported to rebuild America's infrastructure. The Moving Forward Act (H.R. 2) would invest more than $1.5 trillion in modern, sustainable, infrastructure while creating millions of jobs, combatting the climate crisis and addressing disparities in urban, suburban and rural communities across Illinois and throughout the country.

"When we make smart investments in our nation's infrastructure, we invest in families, our economy, education, and the future of our communities. " said Underwood. "The Moving Forward Act delivers historic, urgently-needed investments that reach beyond roads and bridges to equip our communities with 21st century infrastructure. I'm proud to support this legislation."

A fact sheet on the Moving Forward Act can be found here.

The Moving Forward Act makes investments to bring our nation's infrastructure by:

  • Rebuilding our highways, bridges, transit, rail, airports, ports and harbors by investing nearly $500 billion to improve safety, reduce gridlock and put the U.S. on a path toward zero emissions from the transportation sector, all while protecting American jobs with strong Buy America provisions and labor protections.
  • Investing in schools with the Reopen and Rebuild America's Schools Act, which funds $130 billion in school infrastructure targeted at high-poverty schools with facilities that endanger the health and safety of students and educators. This investment will help students get back to school and create more than 2 million jobs to help workers get back to work.
  • Addressing structural challenges and upgrades child care facilities by leveraging a 5-year, $10 billion federal investment to generate additional state and private investments in making sure that child care settings are safe, appropriate, and able to comply with current and future public health directives.
  • Investing over $100 billion into our nation's affordable housing infrastructure to create or preserve 1.8 million affordable homes. These investments will help reduce housing inequality, create jobs and stimulate the broader economy, increase community and household resiliency in the face of natural disasters, improve hazardous living conditions, and increase the environmental sustainability of our housing stock.
  • Protecting access to safe drinking water by investing over $25 billion in the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and other programs to ensure all communities have clean drinking water and to help remove dangerous contaminants like PFAS from local water systems.
  • Modernizing our energy infrastructure for a clean energy future by investing more than $70 billion to transform our electric grid to accommodate more renewable energy, expand renewable energy, strengthen existing infrastructure, help develop an electric vehicle charging network, and support energy efficiency, weatherization, and Smart Communities infrastructure.
  • Delivering affordable high-speed broadband Internet access to all parts of the country by investing $100 billion to promote competition for broadband internet infrastructure in unserved and underserved communities, prioritizing those with persistent poverty. Gets children connected to remote learning, closes broadband adoption and digital skills gaps and enhances payment support for low-income households and the recently unemployed.
  • Modernizing the nation's health care infrastructure by investing $30 billion to upgrade hospitals to increase capacity and strengthen care, help community health centers respond to COVID-19 and future public health emergencies, improve clinical laboratory infrastructure, support the Indian Health Service's infrastructure, and increase capacity for community-based care.
  • Modernizing and strengthens the United States Postal Service by investing $25 billion to modernize postal infrastructure and operations, including a zero emissions postal vehicle fleet, processing equipment and other goods.
  • Promoting new renewable energy infrastructure by incentivizing the development of wind and solar on public lands and building a workforce for offshore wind.
  • Promoting investments in our communities by spurring private investment through the tax code, through a revitalized Build America Bonds program, expansions of Private Activity Bonds, and significant enhancements to the New Markets Tax Credit and the Rehabilitation Tax Credit.

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