WASHINGTON — Michigan Reps. Andy Levin, D-Bloomfield Township and Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, and other progressive members of Congress introduced legislation Thursday to spend $500 billion over the next decade to electrify public transit.
The legislation, dubbed the BUILD GREEN Act, will be introduced in the House by Levin and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and in the Senate by Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey.
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“Electrifying our cars, buses and trains is a central pillar of the Green New Deal. The answer to both the climate crisis and the crisis of wealth inequality is to empower working people with the sustainable investments necessary to rebuild the communities devastated by decades of pollution and corporate trade policy,” Levin said in a statement.
“The BUILD GREEN Act will deliver the transformational change demanded by the American people while ensuring that we build the green economy of the 21st century here at home with good-paying, union jobs.”
The bill would represent a massive increase in spending on electric infrastructure, and at around $50 billion annually would top current federal spending on highways, which was $46 billion last year. President Joe Biden and transportation industry leaders have urged investment in charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.
The group says the package would reduce carbon emissions to the equivalent of taking 4.5 million internal-combustion-engine vehicles off the road. There are more than 250 million vehicles on the road in the U.S. today.
$150 billion of the funding would be set aside for electric rail, vehicles and charging equipment. Other projects could include highway or bridge construction that would install publicly-available electric vehicle equipment, electrifying ports, and other projects that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
State, local and tribal governments, transit agencies and port authorities would be eligible for grants under the program, which the lawmakers said is modeled off of an existing grant program in the Department of Transportation.
Sixty to sixty-five percent of the funding would go to projects in urban areas while 35-40% would go to projects in rural areas. At least 40% of the funding would have to go to projects in “vulnerable and disadvantaged” communities. Depending on the project, grants would be at least $1 or $2 million.
Each state would receive at least $2 billion and no single state would receive more than $40 billion, and the Department of Transportation would fund 85% of project costs.
Any group accepting a grant under the program would be required to pay workers at least $15 per hour, a wage that would grow over time to mirror increases in the median hourly wage nationwide, or prevailing wage, whatever is higher.
Grantees would also have to guarantee at least 12 weeks of paid leave for family and medical emergencies and show a preference for local hiring.
The legislation comes as Congress begins work on a massive $2 trillion infrastructure spending bill that would target roads, bridges, water infrastructure and more nationwide.
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” Michigan Reps. Andy Levin, D-Bloomfield Township and Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit”, where are you going to get the electricity from to charge all forms of transportation????? Will it come from the unreliable windmills? Where are you going to get the power, to build the batteries, that will power these vehicles????? Oh, I forgot, politicians are “experts” in everything, so you politicians do not think. Oh, and by the way Andy, your Uncle, retired Senator Carl Levin, with John McCain, called the IRS (Lois Lerner) to send FBI agents to Conservatives houses, who had never committed any crimes, other than being Conservatives. Give your Uncle Carl a big kiss from me, for being a criminal and a traitor to our Country.
I recall the booming tractor industry in Soviet Russia. “A tractor for every farm!”
Thousands of tractors filled the lots at the manufacturing plants….no tires available for any of them.
Don’t sell that gas burner just yet. (Even if they fund it and build it there will be enough built in flaws to insure that it will NEVER be efficient.)
Packer. YOU actually expect them to have thought THAT far ahead??
Amen, Backpacker. These Bozos (no real offense meant to the clown) don’t seem to understand that the electricity to run this stuff has to come from somewhere. And Californicators want nothing but electric vehicles. Their power grid can’t handle the existing load. What happens when 20 to 30 million electric cars are plugged in at night to recharge? Lights out.
These HYPOCRITES are disgusting. Ask these idiots what are they driving? Are they riding their energy saving bicycles to go to Washington. How are they heating their protected homes? Are they out their recycling and not buying any products that harm our environment?How much are they donating out of their own wallets to these green causes? Moron aoc voted for her own raise right after getting in office. How much did SHE donate to the poor or any of her righteous causes, along with her idiot counterparts? DON’T listen to them and hopefully they will disappear along with their disappearing brains.
AND as we saw all though out texas etc. FREEZING TEMPS shank over windmills and solar fields etc.. LAST I CHECKED michigan was WELL KNOWN for its real cold winters.
Green energy is very fragile, not Texas and iced up wind power or Germany and snow covered solar panels throwing the systems into chaos. batteries do not create energy, except by toxic chemical reaction, but store it using rare earth elements in finite supply and mostly doing environmental damage to extract. Closing coal, gas, and atomic plants without comparable generating replacement facilites will exacebate an already fragile system that might collapse under the demand. What then, individual solar panels so eache person can have their own light? John Kerry wind surfing to climate conferences? AOC pushing the hyperloop through the tube between NYC and DC?
Awwww…. don’t worry about it…. it’s all free money, handed out by our all knowing, all caring, righteous government…. run by morons! With apologies to morons everywhere.