TIGER BEAT: The top two Senate appropriators have officially registered their displeasure with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao for retooling aspects of the program formerly known as TIGER (now called BUILD), your host writes. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) wrote that the popular grant program “is not suitable for testing new policies at this time,” and outlined grievances with the administration’s focus on non-federal revenue and how far back it’s willing to reward a state or region that’s already moved to generate more funding. Congress has set some parameters for how the grants are awarded, but it’s also an unauthorized program — thus giving DOT the ability to adjust aspects of it to its liking (as already evidenced by nearly two-thirds of the fiscal 2017 awards going to rural areas).
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