AASHTO ANALYSIS: Oberstar Pushes Wide-Ranging Transportation Authorization
By SUNNY SCHUST
AASHTO Journal
July 2, 2009
Despite the Obama administration’s preference that surface transportation authorization legislation be postponed for 18 months, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-MN, plans a full committee mark-up of the 775-page bill in late July. AASHTO held a conference call yesterday with state transportation department chief executives to begin analyzing major sections of the legislation.
Addressing a meeting of the Northeastern Association of Transportation Officials on June 22, Oberstar said, “The ‘Administration of Change’ is saying ‘stay put, don’t do anything for 18 months.’ Well, America doesn't have time for [them to get a] short course in transportation. We need it now.”
Oberstar has urged transportation officials to contact the committee to recommend changes or additions to bill, which was approved last week by the Highways and Transit Subcommittee.
The $500 billion authorization measure would provide roughly $450 billion for highway, safety, and transit programs. Just under $100 billion is directed to programs of the Federal Transit Administration, however the bill would reduce the percentage of funding provided under the General Fund to from the current 20 percent to only 12.5 percent, with the remainder ($88 billion) supported by the Highway Trust Fund.
While the bill identifies some $337 billion for highway programs, $50 billion of that amount is directed to a mode-neutral, competitive grant program for metropolitan areas. Another $25 billion is directed to a competitive Projects of National Significance program, where projects also would be selected by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Only five programs would be apportioned by formula to the states, including a Critical Asset Investment Program, the Highway Safety Improvement Program, the Surface Transportation Program, a revamped Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program (with a required suballocation to metropolitan areas), and a Freight Improvement Program.
The bill would provide $12.5 billion over six years for highway and motor-carrier safety programs.
While the proposed Surface Transportation Authorization Act has many blanks to be filled in, the text does address a number of changes to the current legislation. It would create new positions at the U.S. DOT, consolidate programs, and empower metropolitan planning organizations with a greater role in project selection. The bill also calls for creation of a National Transportation Strategic Plan, a national freight policy, and the integration of greenhouse-gas-emission reductions into the transportation planning process.
The bill is silent on identifying a sustainable funding mechanism to support it. That issue falls within the jurisdiction of the House Ways and Means Committee, whose subcommittees began examining funding options at a hearing last week.
Program Changes
Under the subcommittee-approved proposal, the federal-aid highway program would look substantially different. Some programs would be redefined while others would be consolidated.
The bill calls for the creation of a new Critical Asset Investment Program targeted at preservation, rehabilitation, and replacement of roads on the National Highway System or any bridge on the federal-aid system. States would be mandated to develop improvement plans for approval by the U.S. DOT. The plans would have to specify a certain percentage reduction in bridge deficiencies and poor pavements. U.S. DOT would be required to issue a rulemaking on performance standards within 28 months on highway condition and structural adequacy.
This program appears to replace the current National Highway System, Bridge, and Interstate Maintenance programs. Projects that add new capacity to existing highways would not be eligible.
The bill would also create a new Freight Improvement Program, which replaces the Interstate Maintenance program. States would be required to develop a state freight plan, and only projects on that plan would be eligible for funding. It does appear that projects providing for increased capacity would be eligible for funding under this category.
Also new would be the Metropolitan Mobility and Access Program, created “to provide multimodal transportation funding and financing directly to [metropolitan planning organizations] over 500,000 in population.” MPOs would have to develop a metropolitan mobility plan for approval by the U.S. DOT and carry out congestion-management programs. The federal share of the program projects would be 80 percent. No more than 10 grants comprising 40 percent of the program funds would be issued to areas with populations greater than 1 million. The remaining funds would have to be distributed with geographic equity.
The new program would be administered by a high-ranking new undersecretary of transportation for intermodalism, who also would oversee the Projects of National Significance Program and the development of a National Transportation Strategic Plan.
The Projects of National Significance Program would provide federal support for high-cost infrastructure facilities that can’t be funded from a state’s regular apportionment. Projects would have to cost at least $500 million or 75 percent of a state’s annual formula apportionment (whichever is less). Eligible projects would include any project eligible under Title 23 of existing law as well as international bridges and tunnels, public or private freight rail facilities, intermodal freight transfer facilities, and similar improvements.
For the Federal Lands Program, the bill would consolidate existing categories such as public lands highways, forest development roads, forest highways, park roads, and Indian reservation roads together with the present territorial highway program and the Puerto Rico highway program.
The bill contains a wide range of performance measures for virtually every federal-aid program from safety improvements to freight projects. It would assign a variety of performance criteria for measurement, as well as different deadlines by which states and metropolitan areas must comply. Performance measures and targets would have to be included in the transportation planning process.
In concert with the climate change bill passed by the House of Representatives last Friday (see related story on Page 8), the states and metropolitan areas would be required to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would issue the forecasting models and regulations for evaluating project emissions, but the U.S. DOT would be responsible for approving the plans.
Two new offices of project expediting would be created in the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration to facilitate project delivery, focusing on projects greater than $500 million that have been significantly delayed, and making quarterly reports to Congress on resolution of delays.
AASHTO Soliciting Comments from Its Members
“Chairman Oberstar has stated that he welcomes recommendations for amendments to the proposed legislation before the planned full-committee mark-up later in July,” said AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley. “We intend to take him up on that offer. We will be conducting a quick review of the bill, and seeking input from the state DOTs. We welcome suggestions from our members as to changes individual states believe are necessary.”
AASHTO’s Executive Committee will confer on possible suggested amendments July 8.
“Once we have their direction, we will reach out to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leadership from both parties to request the changes that the Executive Committee believes we should pursue,” Horsley said. “We have great concern about the restrictions on new highway capacity in the bill, the reduction in the percentage of resources in the highway program apportioned to states, the shift of decision-making away from state DOTs to Washington and to metro areas, and the significant shift of resources away from rural areas and rural states to metropolitan areas.”
The draft authorization bill approved by subcommittee is available at transportation.house.gov. AASHTO’s authorization campaign website “Are We There Yet?” is available at AreWeThereYet.transportation.org . Further analysis of the bill will be provided in future issues of the AASHTO Journal as full committee mark-up approaches.
