StreetsblogMASS Talks Federal Transportation Policy With Senator Ed Markey

The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), sometimes known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, was a 5-year reauthorization of the federal government’s transportation spending programs, including highway programs, Amtrak, and public transit investments.

At the time, President Biden said that the law “makes the most significant investment in passenger rail in the past 50 years, and in public transit ever.”

Five years after the fact, the actual results of the IIJA are decidedly mixed. The law’s record-setting expenditures barely kept pace with skyrocketing inflation, especially in the construction sector.

But a shift in power in Washington also undermined the law’s objectives, as the second-term Trump administration has blocked and cancelled funding for IIJA programs it doesn’t like.

The IIJA is set to expire later this year, and Congress is now thinking about a new transportation reauthorization law to replace it.

Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey is in a unique position to influence those negotiations: he sits on the Senate Committee on Commerce, which oversees railroad policy, and the Environment and Public Works Committee, which will craft the Senate’s version of the next transportation bill.

StreetsblogMASS met Senator Markey earlier this week in his hometown of Malden to take a ride on an MBTA Route 140 bus together and talk about what’s going on in Washington. Watch the conversation here:

Discussed in this video:

• Senator Markey’s All Aboard Act
• The MBTA’s $2 billion Core Capacity Grant application
• The Build America 250 Act, the reauthorization bill passed by the Republican-controlled House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in May 2026
• Via StreetsblogUSA: Dems Push for Guardrails to Shield Federal Transportation Grants From Trump Meddling

Transcript:

Christian MilNeil: Hi, I’m Christian MilNeil, I’m the editor of Streetsblog Massachusetts.

Meghan Volcy: And I’m Meghan Volcy, reporter for Streetsblog Massachusetts.

MilNeil: And we’re here in Malden Center this morning. Malden is Senator Ed Markey’s hometown, and Meghan’s hometown, right?

Volcy: Yeah!

MilNeil: We’re here to meet the senator and we’re going to take a bus ride with him on the 104 and talk about what’s going on with transportation policy in Washington, D.C. right now.

Volcy: Let’s do it.

[cut to MilNeil and Volcy standing with Senator Markey in front of an MBTA bus]

MilNeil: Senator, thank you so much for joining us here in your hometown in Malden.

Sen. Markey: Thanks for coming out to Malden!

MilNeil: Yeah, it’s a beautiful day here. Just to set the table, you serve on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and the Commerce Committee. Can you tell us, or tell our readers about how those committees specifically influence transportation policy at the federal level?

Markey: There is a division of responsibilities. The Commerce Committee would be responsible for rail, and obviously [gesturing towards the Malden Center Orange Line station] I’m here in Malden and that’s a subject that is of great interest to me, which is why I have my All Aboard Act to spend $200 billion on rail in our country.

And then over on the Environment and Public Works Committee, that deals with kind of the issues that are of great concern to me. Making sure that the transportation projects that we build have lower emissions, have lower costs for people, that we can have complete streets to ensure that bikers and pedestrians are equally protected and treated and encouraged as people who are in their automobiles.

But you have to make an ongoing campaign explaining to other members of Congress who might not come from this kind of a setting that that funding is not only what is needed but it’s what their community wants.

MilNeil: Well that’s a great introduction. You covered a few things that I want to talk about more once we get on the bus. But I think out bus is just about to get here so let’s go hop on.

Markey: Let’s go.

[cut to shot of Markey paying his fare at the front of the bus, then of Markey and MilNeil sitting in the back row of seats]

MilNeil: So, we made it on the bus. We were on the 104. We’re heading towards Chelsea, and I understand it, and this is not just a photo op for you, Senator? You’re actually on a way to your next event at GreenRoots, correct?

Markey: We’re going over to an event in Chelsea with GreenRoots, which is the community-based environmental movement that not only is a model for Massachusetts, but the whole country.

Our transportation policy at the federal level is still overwhelmingly oriented towards roads and highways. And our transportation bills are basically highway funding bills right now. So, I’m curious, why don’t Democrats in Washington try harder to integrate climate policy in these transportation bill and reauthorizations?

Markey: I agree with you. Democrats have to try. They have to work hard. They have to fight harder. It’s a transition that we have to make. It doesn’t happen by accident. You have to have people who are worried to put themselves on the line. Because that’s what the communities want. They don’t want more highways. They want more affordable public transportation, safer roads, safer ways in which they can be riding their bikes.

So all of that should be a part of the agenda of the Democratic Party. And next year, after the Blue Wave hits, this November, that has to be the agenda, in all of the transportation committees.

MilNeil: Our current infrastructure law is the Infrastructure Investment in Jobs Act, which passed back in 2021 with the Biden administration, also known as the bipartisan infrastructure law.

We’re in a situation now when that law created a lot of good funding programs, but the Trump administration is choosing not to spend that money. So for one example, the big federal transit administration grant program, the capital investment grants that fund new subway lines and new bus lines around the country, that hasn’t given out any funding during Trump’s 2nd term. And the MBTA is actually hoping to get $2 billion to fix the Green Line through that program.

So how can you, as a senator, and how can Congress more broadly, hold the administration accountable to actually following the law and doing what Congress intended?

Markey: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think the first step is winning the election, this November. Then the gavels will be in the hands of Democrats. The subpoena power in the hands of the Democrats, and the ability to get right down to the heart of the corruption that is rampant inside of this administration. It’s all-you-can-eat buffet of corruption, which characterizes the Trump administration.

And we know, uh, that the natural gas, the oil industry, they don’t like the idea of clean transportation. They don’t like the idea of moving to a new system, driven by, that emphasizes new technologies stuff like electric vehicle technology.

So that’s all a part of what we’re going to have to be the leaders on, as Democrats next year, to rebalance the table, but also to expose how political these grants are.

Volcy: So what’s your take on the House’s BUILD Act, their five-year proposal for transportation spending re-authorization that likely won’t get a vote in this Congress. What would the Senate do differently?

Markey: Well, for me, I would make sure that there was more funding to guarantee that Amtrak got all that it needed, that we ensured that it had provisions in it, that lowered emissions, that make sure that there are lower costs for people using our transportation system. And to make make sure it was done safely, so that we have lower fatalities, lower injuries as well.

So, we just have to meet the challenge, meet the moment, meet the time that we’re living in right now. And any money looks at the values that we care about, attached to it.

A vision without funding is a hallucination.

But a vision without safety and lower emissions attached to the budget is also, ultimately, an illusion. We have to be absolutely, explicit, intentional in any legislation. And that’s why I would just start all over again next year and get it right.

MilNeil: So the transportation bill, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, was supposed to only last 5 years, it needs to be renewed. That’s sort of being negotiated right now. I want to talk a little bit about the Amtrak funding in that bill, and that reauthorization bill. So you mentioned before, the All Aboard Board Acts that you introduced with $200 billion in funding for rail. The House passed a transportation bill, reauthorization bill, that’s sort of their first draft that wouldn’t include any funding for Amtrak passenger rail, no guaranteed funding for Amtrak, which would effectively be a $66 billion cut budget cut for Amtrak. How is that negotiation going to play out? I’m assuming it’s going to land somewhere in the middle, but is that going to be hashed out in the commerce committee or are you hoping to get the All Aboard Act integrated into the next transportation bill?

Markey: Well… As far as I’m concerned, we’re gonna have to etch-a-sketch, all of the negotiation. We are now negotiating with a MAGA controlled House and Senate, we’re negotiating with a MAGA White House. And we’re gonna win the House and Senate (claps). We’re not passing any bills before the election. So, let’s just etch-a-sketch. We win the House and Senate, let’s start all over again.

MILNEIL: Yeah, okay.

Markey: In January next year.

MilNeil: Okay. So you’re running out the clock right now.

Markey: Let’s use our power in order to make sure that we get it right. Not come hat in hand, hand, oh pretty please, you know, allow us to have a little more from here for something else. Let’s do it right, right from the get-go. So that would be my objective, is just to say, we got the power. Let’s just start again, and let’s get it right.

Volcy: In the last reauthorization, you offered several amendments that ultimately weren’t included in the final package, but you still voted for the bill. How did you weigh that decision?

Markey: Well, I work as hard as I can to get things right. And I had several things that were included, that were good. Obviously, the highway-industrial complex still has too much power. But I see each bill as an opportunity to make it a little bit better, just keep moving in the right direction.

But for my perspective, the past is just a memory but the future is the hard reality, for families needing a high quality transportation in our country that’s safe and it’s lower-cost.

Volcy: As Congress approaches reauthorization again, um, how are you kind of thinking about which priorities are redlines, versus where you’re willing to compromise? How are you balancing that.

Markey: Well, I have hundreds of laws on the books, and each time as I negotiate, I seek to ensure that people it affects the most are included [cross talk with bus announcement]. And if they’re not, then I vote no. And I make that very clear to people, right?

We need environmental justice, we need transportation justice in our country. Now more than ever. And that’s the balance that I try to strike – and the more that we’re able to include, is the more likely I’ll be able to support something, and the more that those special interests keep pushing back, the past keeps pushing back against the future unfolding, it makes it more likely I would be voting, no.

Volcy: We’ve become a region where, with limited exceptions, only the very wealthy can afford to live near T stations, and the working class people who actually rely on the T are being forced to live further and further away. This is often framed as a local zoning issue, but do you have any ideas of how the federal government can begin to address the housing shortage in cities like Boston?

Markey: Well, without question, transportation plays a big role in it. And to the extent to which, transportation is affordable and accessible, to the extent to which it’s free, because transportation is the second largest cost to the average family after housing, then it makes it easier for people to make other decisions with regard to, for example, housing.

And the more that we think about making transportation accessible further away, then families will be able to locate nearer affordable housing outside of Boston, and then commute into their job and be able to affordably travel, and simultaneously have have affordable housing, which is more likely to be something that they can take advantage of even if it’s a little further away from downtown Boston.

Can I say this? One of the things is, Bostonians don’t think of us Maldenians. We’re like 14 minutes out this way. So when they say Boston, we go, you’re including us, right? You’re including someone, right? You’re including Cambridge, you’re including Quincy, you’re including Chelsea and Revere, you’re including all these others, right? So, Boston sometimes is shorthand for a much larger metropolitan area, then it has to be included in the population of transportation plan.

And it just can’t be Boston proper. It has to be all of this surrounding communities in a comprehensive, thoughtful plan, and we’re involved and we’re heading for Chelsea, and those students have to be always valued as part of any transportation plan.