Prior to passage of SAFETEA, the most recent authorization was the Transportation Equity Act for the 21 st Century (TEA-21, P.L. After October 1, 2003 all federal surface transportation programs continued to operate on the basis of 11 short term extension acts. The Conference Committee, Congressional Leadership, especially in the House, and the Administration were unable to reach agreement about total program funding for the next reauthorization period. This was largely because some Members of Congress backed a level of project funding larger than the Bush Administration was willing to support. At the end of the day, SAFETEA provides quite a bit of additional money, $286.4 billion in guaranteed spending authority, for the six-year period FY2004-FY2009. A direct comparison between the two bills, however, is difficult for a number of reasons that are beyond the scope this report. Part of the problem was that a bill that simply reduced the shares of donee states to increase the shares of donor states would have had difficulty overcoming a filibuster by donee states in the Senate. Providing equity in this way has been very expensive in dollar terms, the minimum guarantee program under TEA21, in fact, became the largest highway program. In the end, the constraints of limited funding availability and the practical politics of getting the surface transportation legislation through both houses of Congress, resulted in a modest and gradual increase in the guaranteed rate-of-return to the states. The same remains true in SAFETEA. This bonding provision may be the most important tolling provision in SAFETEA. For starters, SAFETEA contains at least 5,092 separate earmarks for congressional high priority projects (HPPs) with a value of over $14.8 billion (there are several additional blank, but nonetheless numbered earmarks in the conference report). In P.L. Other provisions in the act include a requirement that all federal agencies in the National Capital Region offer their employees a transit pass as a transportation fringe benefit (Section 3049); a provision making the alternatives analysis required as part of the New Starts program eligible for FTA grants (Section 3037), with 18 such studies earmarked for FY2006-FY2007; and earmarks for the Bus and Bus Facilities Program for FY2006-FY2009 (in TEA-21, there were no earmarks for that program for the last three years of the authorization period, leaving the earmarking during those years to the appropriations committees). Following are key SAFETEA provisions related to streamlining that change existing statutory or regulatory requirements:
The establishment of a new entity in the NEPA process, referred to as a "participating agency," that includes those that intend to submit comments on NEPA documentation in addition to those that meet the definition of a cooperating agency; The establishment of procedures to be followed by lead and participating agencies for the collaborative development of the project's statement of purpose and need and project alternatives, including the establishment of deadlines on comments; The establishment of a 180-day statute of limitation on judicial claims on final agency actions related to environmental requirements; Authorization to allow the use of transportation funds to help agencies required to expedite the environmental review process; The establishment of a dispute resolution process when agencies disagree on elements of the environmental review process; Authorization to allow states to determine whether certain classes of projects may be processed as categorical exclusions; and Authorization to allow the establishment of state pilot programs to allow participating states to assume certain federal responsibilities regarding compliance with environmental laws. These limitations are among the issues of concern.
On August 10, 2005, President Bush signed the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act—A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU or SAFETEA) (P.L. 109-59). This act reauthorizes federal surface transportation programs through the end of FY2009. The reauthorization was long overdue, given that the previous long term authorization, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) (P.L. 105-206) expired on September 30, 2003.
The reauthorization debate was primarily characterized by two interrelated issues, money and how that money would be distributed among the states. The 108th Congress came close to a bill with a surface transportation Conference Committee in place. In the end, however, conferees were unable to reach agreement either among themselves or with the Bush Administration as to how large the six-year reauthorization package would be in dollar terms. The Conference was also unable to agree on a solution to the long standing donor-donee state funding distribution question, with donor states insisting on a 95% return on fuel tax revenues and donee states insisting that increased funding for donor states not come at their expense.
In the 109th Congress, the same issues threatened to undermine a Conference Committee that began meeting in June 2005. This time, however, all parties found ways in which to compromise. Most importantly, the Administration allowed total funding in the bill to rise to $286.4 billion for the six-year authorization period (in actuality the act provides $244.1 billion for the five years remaining before FY2009). This increase allowed the conferees to ultimately guarantee all states an eventual 92% rate of return, an improvement on the existing 90.5% rate, while at the same time holding 27 states harmless (meaning they will not receive less actual money than they have in the past). With these key compromises in place many of the objections to the bill disappeared and the conference report was agreed to on July 29, 2005.
In addition to money issues, the act addressed a number of other issues. These included the creation of a new consolidated safety program, enhanced environmental streamlining regulations, changes in clean air conformity regulations, funding for transit new starts, expanded reliance on innovative financing and tolls, and spending on congressional high priority projects (earmarks).
This report will be updated as warranted by congressional actions.