Kelly co-sponsors bill to provide local governments flexibility with COVID-19 relief funds

Today, U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) announced he co-sponsored the State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Fiscal Recovery, Infrastructure, and Disaster Relief Flexibility Act, to make various infrastructure investments eligible for payment with unspent COVID-19 relief funds. The bill, introduced by Reps. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) and Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-GA), now has more than 140 bipartisan co-sponsors.

"This bill will help local governments throughout our district spend COVID-19 relief the way they best see fit," Kelly said. "Previous guidelines were too restrictive, and this provides more flexibility and options to the state and our local municipalities. I'm proud to help cut the red tape and aid our local leaders. I thank Reps. Johnson and Bourdeaux for their leadership on this effort."

BACKGROUND

Under the American Rescue Plan Act and the original CARES Act relief package, Congress provided some flexibility for how COVID funds could be spent, but most funds were not able to be used for infrastructure projects. This bill gives state and local officials additional flexibility and time to responsibly spend remaining COVID-19 relief dollars.

The bill does the following:

• Permits eligible government entities to spend the greater of $10 million or 30% of their total fiscal relief funding on infrastructure and other new categories, some of which were created by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework;
• Does not increase spending, does not place mandates on state or local governments, and does not score;
• Creates a new pathway for well-off entities to return their relief funding for deficit reduction purposes if they wish to do so;
• Includes language to ensure spending supplements existing funding obligations instead of supplanting them;
• Requires the Treasury and Transportation secretaries to report to Congress on the use of relief funds to ensure accountability;
• Clarifies existing allocations set aside at Treasury for tribal governments and ensures they receive funding delayed by legal barriers over the last year;
• New Uses of Fiscal Relief Funding: Projects under the following categories would now be eligible for funding with fiscal relief sent to state and local governments.

You can read more about the bill here.