HR 3684 Passes in House – INVEST in America

Yesterday the House completed the consideration of HR 3684, the INVEST in America Act, passing the bill by a mainly party-line vote of 221 to 201. There were two Republicans {Fitzpatrick (R,PA) and Smith (R,NJ)} that voted for the final language of the bill. Both amendments that I discussed on Wednesday, passed earlier as part of two separate en bloc considerations on Wednesday.

The Steil amendment passed as part of the Lamb en bloc amendment No. 2 by voice vote (pg H3539). I usually (and certainly in this case) call a ‘voice vote’ a demonstration of bipartisan support for a measure. The Garamendi amendment was passed as part of the DeFazio en bloc amendment No. 4 by a near party-line vote of 221 to 187 (pg H3564).

While this surface transportation bill is considered a ‘must pass’ bill, the Senate is unlikely to take up the language of this bill as passed in the House. Instead, when the Senate takes up HR 3684, it will substitute language from a Senate bill. This is a rather standard process for such bills. This year, that language is likely to be the moderate compromise language for the infrastructure bill that we have been hearing about in the news.

Once the Senate passes their version of the bill, with the floor amendments that would have to be expected, a conference committee would be appointed to work out the differences between the two versions of the bill. Many of the cybersecurity and transportation safety measures that I have discussed here would be likely to make it into the compromise bill that would come out of that conference.