MTC-ABAG delegation visits Washington advocating for Bay Area priorities

MTC Chair Sue Noack, MTC Vice Chair Stephanie Moulton-Peters and ABAG President and Commissioner Belia Ramos last week traveled to Washington, D.C., for MTC’s annual federal advocacy trip. 

They were joined by members of the MTC-ABAG executive leadership and legislative team. Over the course of three days, the group met with offices of 13 members of the Bay Area Congressional delegation: 

• U.S. Representatives Mark DeSaulnier, John Garamendi, Jared Huffman, Ro Khanna, Sam Liccardo, Zoe Lofgren, Kevin Mullin, James Panetta, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Lateefah Simon and Mike Thompson 
• U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff 

The delegation also met with the U.S. Department of Transportation and was hosted by Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) for a tour of its Metro Integrated Command and Communications Center. WMATA staff briefed the delegation on the agencies' work on ridership recovery, customer-facing improvements and cost-saving efforts. 

The delegation also heard from Nick Dohohue, Secretary of Transportation for the Commonwealth of Virginia and Joe McAndrew, Assistant Secretary at the Maryland Department of Transportation on their state-led efforts to secure operating funding for WMATA, along with other shared transportation priorities, including managed lanes and bridges.

Speaker Emerita Pelosi and Congresswoman Simon spoke at the Annual California Transportation Reception, which MTC co-hosts with the Southern California Association of Governments. Nearly 200 California transportation partners, members of Congress, staff, and national transportation leaders attended the reception. 

The trip occurred at a strategically important time, coinciding with the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee’s release of its 1,000 page BUILD America 2050 Act proposal to reauthorize the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, or BIL), which is set to expire on Sept. 30, 2026. Federal transportation bills typically take years to draft and negotiate, and the House T&I Committee’s action is a significant step in that process.