Resilient Transit Act of 2025
Officially: “Resilient Transit Act of 2025” Read the full text
What it does
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1Short title
This section would state that the Act may be cited as the Resilient Transit Act of 2025.
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1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Resilient Transit Act of 2025 .
2Definitions
This section would add a new definition of resilience improvement to the list of definitions in section 5302 of title 49, United States Code, giving that term the same meaning it has in section 176(a) of title 23, United States Code. To make room for the new entry, it would renumber the existing paragraphs (17) through (25) of section 5302 as paragraphs (18) through (26).
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2. Definitions Section 5302 of title 49, United States Code, is amended— (1) by redesignating paragraphs (17) through (25) as paragraphs (18) through (26), respectively; and (2) by inserting after paragraph (16) the following: (17) Resilience improvement The term resilience improvement has the meaning given the term in section 176(a) of title 23. .
3State of good repair grants for public transportation resilience improvement
This section would add a new subsection (g) to section 5337 of title 49, United States Code, creating a public transportation resilience improvement grant program. It would define several terms for that program: an environmental justice community is a community with significant representation of communities of color, low-income communities, or Tribal and indigenous communities that experiences or is at risk of experiencing higher or more adverse human health or environmental effects; EJSCREEN is the Environmental Protection Agency's environmental justice mapping and screening tool; the EJ Index means the Environmental Justice Indexes within EJSCREEN; medically underserved community has the meaning given that term in section 799B of the Public Health Service Act; and an underserved community is either a community in a ZIP Code or census tract that the Secretary identifies as low-income, a community of color, or a Tribal community, or any other community the Secretary determines is disproportionately vulnerable to, or bears a disproportionate burden of, any combination of economic, social, environmental, or climate stressors. Under the new program, the Secretary may make grants to help State and local government authorities finance public transportation resilience improvements that increase the resilience of public transportation systems against the impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, flooding, wildfires, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters. Eligible activities would include installing measures to keep floodwaters out, installing equipment to detect flood events, replacing equipment or facilities that are currently or will become prone to flooding, buying new equipment to maintain drainage and pumping infrastructure, replacing equipment stressed by extreme temperature events, installing equipment and sensors to regulate and monitor extreme temperatures, developing backup power systems for outages of a primary power source, assessing system vulnerabilities to current and future weather events, natural disasters, and climate change including sea level rise, planning system improvements and emergency response strategies to address those vulnerabilities, and any other resilience improvement activity the Secretary determines eligible. Grants could fund either standalone projects or components of projects carried out under section 5337(b)(1). Of the funds made available under section 5338(a)(2)(L) to carry out this new grant program, 97.15 percent would be apportioned to recipients under section 5337(c) and 2.85 percent under section 5337(d). Not later than one year after enactment, and every year after that, the Secretary would have to submit a report to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, the Senate Committee on Appropriations, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and the House Committee on Appropriations, and publish it on the Department of Transportation's website, describing how the program was carried out during the preceding calendar year. The report would have to include a detailed description of the activities carried out under the grants; a summary of each project funded in whole or in part by a grant that benefits or is located in a neighborhood with poverty and unemployment rates above the national average, a neighborhood where 30 percent or more of households receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits or benefits under a federal mandatory spending program whose eligibility or benefit amount is based on income or resources, an underserved community or medically underserved community, an EPA region where the EJ Index is above the national average as shown by EJSCREEN, or an environmental justice community documented by federally recognized environmental justice mapping and equity screening tools; and recommendations to improve how the program is administered. This section would also make a conforming change to section 5337, replacing every existing reference to section 5338(a)(2)(K) with a reference to section 5338(a)(2)(L), so that those cross-references point to the funding paragraph that would fund the new resilience improvement grants.
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3. State of good repair grants for public transportation resilience improvement (a) In general Section 5337 of title 49, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: (g) Public transportation resilience improvement grants (1) Definitions In this section: (A) Environmental justice community The term environmental justice community means a community with significant representation of communities of color, low-income communities, or Tribal and indigenous communities, that experiences or is at risk of experiencing higher or more adverse human health or environmental effects. (B) EJSCREEN The term EJSCREEN means the environmental justice mapping and screening tool created by the Environmental Protection Agency. (C) EJ Index The term EJ Index means the Environmental Justice Indexes in EJSCREEN. (D) Medically underserved community The term medically underserved community has the meaning given the term in section 799B of the Public Health Service Act ( 42 U.S.C. 295p ). (E) Underserved community The term underserved community means— (i) a community located within a ZIP Code or census tract that is identified by the Secretary as— (I) a low-income community; (II) a community of color; or (III) a Tribal community; or (ii) any other community that the Secretary determines is disproportionately vulnerable to, or bares a disproportionate burden of, any combination of economic, social, environmental, or climate stressors. (2) Grants The Secretary may make grants under this subsection to assist State and local government authorities in financing 1 or more eligible activities described in paragraph (3). (3) Eligible activities (A) In general A recipient of a grant under this subsection may use grant amounts for public transportation resilience improvements that increase the resilience of public transportation systems from the impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, flooding, wildfires, extreme weather events, and other natural disasters. (B) Inclusions Activities eligible to be carried out using grant amounts under this subsection include— (i) the installation of mitigation measures that prevent the intrusion of floodwaters; (ii) the installation of equipment to detect the occurrence of a flood event; (iii) the replacement of equipment or facilities that are currently prone to flood events or will be in the future; (iv) the purchase of new equipment to support regular maintenance of drainage and pumping infrastructure; (v) the replacement of equipment stressed during extreme temperature events; (vi) the installation of equipment to regulate temperatures and sensors to monitor extreme temperatures; (vii) the development of backup systems to provide redundancy during the outage of a primary power source; (viii) the assessment of system vulnerabilities to current and future weather events, natural disasters, and climate change, including sea level rise; (ix) the planning of system improvements and emergency response strategies to address identified vulnerabilities; and (x) any other activity for resilience improvement, as determined by the Secretary. (4) Types of projects Grants under this subsection may be used to finance— (A) standalone projects; and (B) components of projects carried out under subsection (b)(1). (5) Public transportation resilience improvement formula Of the amounts made available under section 5338(a)(2)(L) to carry out this subsection— (A) 97.15 percent shall be apportioned to recipients in accordance with subsection (c); and (B) 2.85 percent shall be apportioned to recipients in accordance with subsection (d). (6) Annual reports to Congress Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this subsection, and annually thereafter, the Secretary shall submit to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate, the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate, the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives, and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, and publish on the website of the Department of Transportation, a report that describes the implementation of this subsection during the preceding calendar year, including— (A) a detailed description of the activities carried out under the grants provided under this subsection; (B) a summary of each project financed in whole or in part by a grant provided under this subsection that benefits or is located in— (i) a neighborhood with poverty and unemployment rates that exceed the average in the United States; (ii) a neighborhood where 30 percent or more of households receive benefits under— (I) the supplemental nutrition assistance program under the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 ( 7 U.S.C. 7011 et seq. ); or (II) a mandatory spending program of the Federal Government for which, as determined by the Secretary, eligibility for the program’s benefits, or the amount of such benefits, is determined on the basis of income or resources of the individual or family seeking the benefit; (iii) an underserved community or a medically underserved community; (iv) an EPA region where the EJ Index is above the national average, as determined by EJSCREEN; or (v) an environmental justice community, as documented by federally recognized environmental justice mapping and equity screening tools; and (C) recommendations to improve the administration of this subsection. . (b) Conforming amendments Section 5337 of title 49, United States Code, is amended by striking section 5338(a)(2)(K) each place it appears and inserting section 5338(a)(2)(L) .
4Authorizations
This section would raise the amount authorized under section 5338(a)(1)(E) of title 49, United States Code, from $14,642,000,000 to $14,942,000,000, an increase of $300,000,000. It would also raise the amount authorized under section 5338(a)(2)(L) from $3,850,496,668 to $4,150,496,668, and would add language specifying that $300,000,000 of the amount made available for fiscal year 2026 under that paragraph shall be available to carry out the new public transportation resilience improvement grant program established under section 5337(g).
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4. Authorizations Section 5338(a) of title 49, United States Code, is amended— (1) in paragraph (1)(E), by striking $14,642,000,000 and inserting $14,942,000,000 ; and (2) in paragraph (2)(L)— (A) by striking $3,850,496,668 and inserting $4,150,496,668 ; and (B) by inserting and $300,000,000 for fiscal year 2026 shall be available to carry out section 5337(g) after section 5337(f) .
Where it is
In the House.