All Aboard Act of 2025
The All Aboard Act of 2025 would dramatically reshape U.S. rail policy by pairing large-scale funding with ambitious decarbonization and modernization goals. It creates a State Rail Formula Grant program to help states plan, operate, maintain, and expand rail, and it establishes the Green Railroads Fund to accelerate electrification and zero-emission rail infrastructure through competitive grants. The bill also expands passenger and high-performance rail programs, strengthens labor standards and workforce development, and adds rail-related measures to address air quality and climate resilience. Taken together, the act aims to speed electrification of rail, grow intercity passenger service (especially high-performance service), and reduce environmental and health impacts in environmental justice communities, while building a trained rail workforce. If enacted, the bill would authorize substantial multiy-year funding and require robust planning, community engagement, labor protections, and interagency coordination. It would also broaden eligibility for key federal rail programs, prioritize electrification and climate resilience, and attach conditions like local hiring, project labor agreements, and explicit workforce transition plans to many grants. The measures could shift rail investment toward electrified corridors and shift passenger and freight movement away from short-haul aviation, with significant implications for states, rail carriers, Amtrak, labor organizations, environmental justice communities, and the broader transportation sector.
Key Points
- 1State Rail Formula Funding framework: guarantees annual funding to each state for rail planning, operations, and infrastructure, with targets to expand high-performance passenger rail and electrify freight/passenger rail; requires states to submit plans and progress reports, and to pursue zero-emission locomotive goals (2047), with a minimum $5 million per state per year for five years; authorizes $3.5 billion over five years.
- 2Green Railroads Fund: creates competitive grants to electrify rail operations, open to a wide set of eligible entities; emphasizes robust public engagement (multilingual outreach), environmental health safeguards, wage/apprenticeship requirements, and a workforce transition plan to retrain and offset displacement; priority for projects reducing air pollution in environmental justice communities and for expanding high-performance rail; authorizes $50 billion over five years.
- 3Expansion of passenger/high-performance rail: large new funding and expanded eligibility to accelerate intercity passenger rail investments; priority for electrification and high-performance corridors; strengthens project labor agreements, local hiring, and wage standards; includes Amtrak climate resilience funding and rail-crossings programs; authorizes substantial federal support (e.g., $80 billion for the Federal-State Intercity Partnership, plus other programs totaling many billions).
- 4Rail-related climate and air quality efforts: establishes a Rail Air Pollution Grant Program via EPA (under Clean Air Act sections 103/105) with $500 million over five years; adds grants to address railyard emissions and broader environmental impacts.
- 5Labor protections and workforce development: applies applicable labor and workforce rules to grants; creates dedicated Passenger Rail and Freight Rail Workforce Training Centers to develop standards-based training, apprenticeship programs, and pathways for diverse and underrepresented workers; authorizes $500 million over five years for training centers; requires wage protections and, for electrification projects, strong local hiring and community engagement.