U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-9) tonight voted in favor of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that cleared the House of Representatives.

“Last November, the American people elected a Democratic Congress with a mandate to rebuild America. With today’s historic vote we continue to fulfill that mandate,” said Rep. Pascrell. “Last week in North Jersey, we joined President Biden to announce a replacement for our 110-year-old Portal Bridge. In our district and across the country rebuilding America demands replenishing and replacing our crumbling roads, tunnels, and bridges. It will be the largest investment ever in our public transit system, as well as our passenger rail service, and provide the funding needed for the Gateway Project. Communities will benefit from massive funding to upgrade our sewer systems, and public health will improve thanks to funds for clean and safe drinking water. The Democratic Congress will pay down our country’s largest investment in new infrastructure that we have seen in decades. This is a titanic win for the United States of America. This is what building back better looks like.”

Pascrell concluded, “Despite its extraordinary nature, today’s vote is an hors d’oeuvre that will be insufficient without the main course of Build Back Better. We need investments in families, in environment, and in true tax reforms that can provide fairness. This is especially true for the middle-class tax relief New Jerseyans demand with to alleviate the Republican SALT cap. The writers of this bill deserve much credit for garnering significant bipartisan support which is no small feat in our era of hyper partisanship. But if this package is the skeletal system of a new America, the Build Back Better Act is its heart.

This historic bipartisan physical infrastructure investment includes around $550 billion in new federal investment in America’s roads, rail, bridges, and water infrastructure. The bill will grow the economy, enhance our competitiveness, create good paying union jobs, and make our economy more sustainable, resilient, and equitable. This bill is expected to create around two million jobs per year over the course of a decade and tackle the climate crisis.

Specifically, the bill invests:

• Roads: $110 billion of new funds for roads, bridges, and major projects, and reauthorizes the Surface Transportation Program for the next five years.

• Bridges: $40 billion of new funding for bridge repair, replacement, and rehabilitation, which is the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the interstate highway system.

• Safety: $11 billion in transportation safety programs, including $5 billion for a Safe Streets for All program to help states and localities reduce crashes and fatalities in their communities, especially for cyclists and pedestrians.

• Public transit: $89.9 billion in guaranteed funding for public transit over the next five years to repair and upgrade aging infrastructure and modernize bus and rail fleets, including $39 billion of new investment to modernize public transit and improve accessibility for the elderly and people with disabilities; an additional $8 billion for Capital Investment Grants; and $5.75 billion to replace thousands of transit vehicles, including buses, with clean, zero emission vehicles.

• Amtrak: $66 billion to eliminate the Amtrak maintenance backlog and modernize the Northeast Corridor, which is the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak 50 years ago. This includes $22 billion in grants to Amtrak, $24 billion as federal-state partnership grants for Northeast Corridor modernization, $12 billion for partnership grants for intercity rail service, including high-speed rail, $5 billion for rail improvement and safety grants, and $3 billion for grade crossing safety improvements.

• Electric vehicles: $7.5 billion to support a national network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers in the United States.

• Clean energy: $5 billion in zero emission and clean buses to deliver thousands of electric school buses nationwide and $2.5 billion for ferries to drive demand for American-made batteries and vehicles that will create jobs and support domestic manufacturing while also removing diesel buses from some of our most vulnerable communities.

• Airports: $17 billion in port infrastructure and $25 billion in airports to address repair and maintenance backlogs, reduce congestion and emissions near ports and airports, and drive electrification and other low-carbon technologies.

• Clean water: $55 billion in clean drinking water and dedicated funding to replace all of the nation’s lead service lines, which is the largest investment in American history.

• Environment: $21 billion in environmental remediation, which is the largest investment in American history to address legacy pollution that harms the public health of communities and neighborhoods. Additionally The bill includes funds to clean up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaim abandoned mine land, and cap orphaned gas wells.