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Today, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (TX-16) voted to pass H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act. This sweeping legislation invests more than $1.5 trillion to rebuild America’s infrastructure while creating millions of good-paying jobs, combatting the climate crisis, and addressing disparities in communities in Texas throughout the country. 

The legislation includes two amendments offered by Congresswoman Escobar to improve infrastructure in El Paso colonias. 

The first amendment directs the Department of Transportation (DoT) to complete a study on the infrastructure state of colonias. The study would include information on surface, transit, water, and broadband infrastructure and would be due back to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as well as the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation one year after the enactment of the Moving Forward Act. 

The second amendment establishes the Colonias State of Good Repair Grant Program. This $10 million a year grant program will increase the state of good repair for surface infrastructure in and around colonias. 

“Today, I proudly joined House Democrats to pass the Moving Forward Act to rebuild our country and help communities like El Paso by creating jobs for working families, addressing our climate crisis, and long-standing disparities in Texas’ colonias,” said Congresswoman Escobar. “The Moving Forward Act is bold, innovative, forward-looking and will put our nation on the right path to finally modernizing our infrastructure.”

In addition to Congresswoman Escobar’s amendments, the Moving Forward Act includes the following far-reaching provisions:

• The INVEST in America Act, a nearly $500 billion investment to rebuild and reimagine the nation’s transportation infrastructure by fixing our crumbling roads and bridges, improving safety, reducing gridlock and putting the U.S. on a path toward zero emissions from the transportation sector by cutting carbon pollution, investing in public transit and the national rail network, building out fueling infrastructure for low- and zero-emission vehicles and deploying technology and innovative materials. Under H.R. 2, Texas would receive nearly $30 billion in highway and transit funding alone.
• Invests 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 El Paso students get back to school and create more than 2 million jobs to help workers get back to work.  
• Addresses 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. 
• Invests 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.
• Protects 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. 
• Modernizes 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.
• Delivers 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. 
• Modernizes 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.   
• Modernizes 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. 
• Promotes new renewable energy infrastructure by incentivizing the development of wind and solar on public lands and building a workforce for offshore wind. 
• Promotes 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.

The text for Congresswoman’s amendments is available here and a fact sheet on the provisions of the Moving Forward Act is available here.

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