Senate Bans Procurements of Chinese Transit Vehicles

This month, the U.S. Senate adopted "a one-year ban on any new procurements of mass transit rail cars or buses from companies owned or subsidized by the government of the People’s Republic of China, if the procurement uses any Federal Transit Administration formula or bus funding," reports Jeff Daniels in Eno Transportation Weekly.

The temporary ban was pushed by American manufacturers of freight rail cars in an effort to preempt losing market share to the Chinese state rail company, which has seen success in other countries. Daniels reports further on the criteria and other key details of the policy:

The Senate prohibition only applies to funding from the urbanized area formula (§5307), rural area formula (§5311), state of good repair formula (§5337) and bus and bus facility grant (§5339) programs (formula and discretionary), not other FTA programs. Notably, this leaves open the possibility that Capital Investment Grant program (§5309) money for future new starts, small starts, or core capacity projects could be used for Chinese rolling stock or buses.