Last week, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Hoover) introduced the Coronavirus Relief Fund Flexibility Act, which would allow state governments to determine how to spend the remainder of CARES Act funds appropriated by the federal government earlier this year.
Palmer’s bill would also extend a statutory deadline on spending CARES Act money, as just a little more than three months remain before that end-of-the-year deadline arrives.
During an interview on Monday’s broadcast of FM Talk 106.5’s “The Jeff Poor Show,” Palmer explained the limitations on how the states could spend the money. However, there was a generous infrastructure provision in his legislation, which he said could fund a handful of big-ticket highway projects scattered throughout the state.
“What my bill does is it will take that discretion away from the governor and give it to the legislators because they’re the closest to the people through their districts,” he said. “We will prohibit any of it being spent on bailing out pensions, giving government employees a raise or hiring lobbyists. They will have to keep 25% of it in reserve in the event there is another COVID outbreak. The balance, they can spend it on where they think they need it the most.”
“And one of the things I added into that was — because the Democrats basically poisoned the surface transportation bill which never happened before,” Palmer continued. “We’ve always been able to reach a bipartisan agreement on a transportation bill. We’re not going to have one. So I put a provision in this bill that says that if the state of Alabama wanted to take $300 or $400 million of that COVID-19 money to spend on infrastructure projects such as the Northern Beltline in Birmingham, improvements to U.S. 72 and I-565 west of Huntsville, a connector from Dothan to Interstate 10 or the Mobile bridge, we will give them another 50%. That’s money that normally would have come out of transportation. There’s 26 states right now with projects on hold that this would be a huge benefit to as far as infrastructure. And that’s only on projects that are federally authorized or approved by the Corps of Engineers. So, they’re not going to go out and build a road to their friend’s favorite hunting camp or something.”
Palmer mentioned Alabama’s revenue situation amid the pandemic, which he pointed out had improved over the year prior, and that could make progress on those projects mentioned above possible.
“The other thing that people need to know is Alabama’s gross revenues are up almost 6% over last year, maybe close to 7%,” Palmer added. “The state of Alabama would have an opportunity here to do some things that need to be done.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
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