From our friends at ACEC Arizona Chapter
The bi-partisan leadership of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee has released the text of their two-year transportation bill. The committee is scheduled to vote on the bill this week Wednesday, November 9.
Click here for a four-page summary of the bill.
Click here for the full text of the 600-page bill.
Entitled Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), the bill authorizes roughly $85.3 billion for federal highway programs over two years. Here are a few highlights:
- Includes several ACEC-recommended project delivery reforms, including accelerated environment reviews, expansion of categorical exclusions, and authority for pre-NEPA property acquisition;
- Consolidates about 90 existing programs into less than 30, to provide more flexibility to states while focusing on key national priorities;
- Eliminates earmarks and distributes the vast majority of funding via formulas;
- Creates a new freight mobility program, funded at more than $2 billion per year;
- Establishes new performance-based asset management standards for State DOTs and MPOs;
- Expands the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program to $1 billion per year, to expand financing assistance and leverage state and private investment in transportation projects.
(Please note that this bill only covers the highway and highway research programs. Federal transit and highway safety programs fall within the jurisdiction of two other committees in the Senate. Those committees have not yet unveiled their bills, which would need to be merged together before going to the full Senate for consideration.)
