Grace Napolitano: “Those entities that really sent good, solid information to this committee were the San Gabriel Valley Council of…”

“Those entities that really sent good, solid information to this committee were the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments, the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership, the Alameda Corridor-East Construction Authority, the Foothill Transit, the Gold Line Foothill Transit Project, the Gateway Council of Governments, the Access Services of Los Angeles, the LA Metro, the Southern California Association of Governments, Caltrans, the California Department of Natural Resources, and the California Department of Labor. I ask my colleagues for their support, and I ask for an ``aye'' vote from all of us. This is a great bill thanks to their bipartisan support. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record a list of the items that were able to be included in the bill. Overall Funding Levels The bill authorizes Highway, Transit and Railroad programs at $305 billion over 5 years. $281 billion is directly funded from revenues in the bill (aka ``contract authority programs'') which is for highway programs and most transit programs. This is $12.8 billion higher than the House passed bill. This higher funding level was requested by California transportation agencies including Caltrans, the Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and the California Councils of Governments (COGs). $24 billion is authorized to be appropriated annually.…”