Amata Highlights Legislation Supporting Roads and Water Quality Improvements in American Samoa

Washington, D.C. – Friday, Congresswoman Uifa'atali Amata highlighted the advancement of legislation that would lead to road improvements for American Samoa as the House passed H.R. 3684, the INVEST in America Act. This Act authorizes $343 billion for roads, bridges and safety measures, $109 billion for transit, $95 billion for passenger and freight rail, $117 billion for drinking water infrastructure resources and roughly $51 billion for wastewater infrastructure.

Included in the bill is a 215 percent increase in the highway block grant funding for the territories. This would provide over $60 million over 5 years for improvements to American Samoa's roads, bridges and rights of way.

Additional funding grants for the improvement of drinking and wastewater infrastructure will be available as well. One grant provision is focused on replacing lead pipes around the country while adopting tougher water quality standards nationwide. The second aims to help low-income people pay their water bills. So, these are all grants in which American Samoa can participate.

"We need improvements to our drinking water and wastewater systems along with improvements to our primary and secondary roads. This bill provides a framework that can be finalized with the Senate later this summer to provide the jobs and improvements to our local infrastructure that are needed and will provide five years of funding for those purposes," said Congresswoman Amata.

Congresswoman Amata continued, "I fully anticipate the House, in concert with the Biden administration, will begin informal negotiations with their Senate counterparts, which is working on a similar bill, with the goal of finalizing a combined transportation infrastructure bill by the August recess."