Sam Graves loaded millions for KC area into transportation bill. Then he led opposition.

Missouri Republican Rep. Sam Graves led the charge Wednesday to block a spending bill that steers roughly $20 million to his district for transportation projects he personally requested.

Why would Graves vote against legislation stuffed with spending that he sought? His office did not respond to questions Thursday.

But he is one of several Republicans from the region who opposed the bill despite adding local projects, allowing them to burnish their anti-spending bona fides with fiscal conservatives while ensuring that federal largesse still flowed to their districts.

After a marathon Wednesday evening debate, the House voted 221 to 201 Thursday morning to pass a $715 billion transportation and water infrastructure package.

The bill is distinct from President Joe Biden’s larger infrastructure plan. Every five years Congress passes legislation to authorize federal spending on highways, bridges and other projects.

The INVEST in America Act, the name given to the bill by majority Democrats, represents the return of earmarked spending to Congress.

Earmarks — the practice of lawmakers steering money to pet projects in their districts — fell out of favor a decade ago with the election of anti-spending Tea Party Republicans. But with the Democrats in control of both chambers of Congress for the first time since 2010, earmarks are back.

Only two Republicans voted for the bill. Most voted no yet still participated in the earmark process.

Graves requested roughly $30 million of earmarked spending for his district, which stretches across northern Missouri. About $20 million of it was approved and included in the bill.

It provides $9.4 million for safe streets and sidewalks in Excelsior Springs, $5.5 million to improve an interchange on I-35 in Kearney and $3.2 million to reconstruct Riverway Boulevard in Riverside among other projects.

Despite the funding for these projects, Graves adamantly opposed the legislation and led the party’s opposition to it on the House floor as the top Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

He argued the bill was overly partisan and unfunded.

“This bill is completely unpaid for. It’s completely unpaid for, something that I’ve never seen in a highway bill in my two decades here in Congress,” said Graves, who has served in the House since 2001.

Graves also blasted the environmental portions of the bill as wasteful.

“In order to appease the progressives in their party, the majority showed no willingness to meet us anywhere in the middle. Instead they moved their bill even further to the left… One out of every two dollars in this bill is tied up in the Green New Deal agenda,” Graves said.

The bill is separate from the sweeping Green New Deal, but it contains a number of provisions aimed at reducing carbon emissions to combat climate change, including in the Kansas City area.

The bill includes $10.5 million for zero-fare and zero-emissions electric buses for the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, requested by Kansas Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids and Missouri Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, whose district borders Graves’.

This money will be on top of the $3.3 million grant for the electric bus program that the Department of Transportation announced last week. The buses will serve both sides of the state line.

Cleaver said the bill will “revitalize communities that have fallen behind, and energize American workers with good-paying jobs—all while reducing our carbon emissions.” The bill sends nearly $23 million to his district, including the money for the buses and another $6 million for a pedestrian plaza in Kansas City’s Jazz District.

Davids, the vice chair of Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, championed the legislation, which includes $15 million to improve an interchange at 167th Street on U.S. 69 in Overland Park.

“In the Kansas 3rd, there’s a particular highway that’s been a priority since my predecessor’s predecessor. It’s the busiest four-lane road in the state, experiencing increased crashes and constant congestion,” Davids said in a floor speech Wednesday evening. “Folks in our district disagree on plenty, but not this: U.S. 69 must be addressed.”

In addition to Graves, other Republicans from the Kansas City region successfully sought earmarks and then opposed the final product.

Kansas Republican Rep. Jake LaTurner, for example, has nearly $20 million earmarked in the bill for projects in Lawrence, Topeka and Leavenworth among other cities in Kansas.

The bill likewise includes more than $14 million for projects in the Wichita area, requested by Kansas Republican Rep. Ron Estes, who voted against the bill, along with every other Republican from Kansas and Missouri.

LaTurner said in a statement that he was “proud of getting critical infrastructure investments into the final bill, which will greatly benefit the people of Eastern Kansas.”

But he also asserted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “hijacked the much needed infrastructure bill to further her liberal agenda,” complaining specifically about the climate-related provisions.