Rep. Sam Graves: ‘Compromise’ will get it done

Key Takeaways

Rep. Sam Graves (R-M.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and a sixth-generation farmer, told county officials March 4 at the NACo Legislative Conference General Session that Congress’ upcoming surface transportation reauthorization will be a “traditional infrastructure bill — that means lane asphalt, pouring concrete and building bridges.”

As chairman of the largest committee in Congress, Graves oversees America’s modes of transportation, from aviation to highways and bridges to rail transit. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee also has jurisdiction over federal public buildings, ranging from the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Kansas City, Mo.; emergency programs, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and all operations related to the U.S. Coast Guard. 

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is currently working on the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act and will also be coming back to the Coast Guard Reauthorization Act, which passed in the House, but didn’t get finalized in the Senate last session, according to Graves. The committee’s successes last Congress included the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Water Resources Development (WRDA) reauthorization acts. 

“We’ve got a lot on our plate,” Graves said. “… And we do have a lot of work to do … And one of the nice things about my world, at least in transportation, is we still have true silos of dollars. These are true trust funds.”

Graves estimated that the highway reauthorization bill will cost about $600 billion, which he said he thinks can be done within the Highway Trust Fund. Something that will be added in the reauthorization is recovering fees from electric and hybrid vehicles, Graves said. 

About two-thirds of the 119th Congress have not been a part of passing a traditional highway bill or any sort of surface transportation reauthorization, so the focus right now is on educating newer members on what all of that entails, including soliciting feedback at the local level, according to Graves. 

“This will be a member-driven bill,” Graves said. “It’s going to take all those priorities from the members out there, in dealing with you all — with counties, with their municipal planning commissions, with their deities, whatever the case may be — and they will put together those priorities, and then we will put them in the bill.”

Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, is Graves’ partner in the reauthorization process. He and Larsen “work very well together,” Graves said, adding that they are “old school legislators” who will do what it takes to get the work done. 

“Rick and I like to tell our members we are a work committee, not a show committee,” Graves said. “So, if you want to get your name in the headlines or your face on TV, go down the hall to the Oversight or the Judiciary Committee, because we have work to do in Transportation.

“ … We believe in compromise. What that means is you’re not going to get everything that you want, but you’re going to get most of what you want in the bill. And we have member buy in, and that’s what helps us to pass bills the way we do.”