The House Republicans are submitting their amendments of the Surface Transportation Authorization Act (STAA) to the Highway and Transit Subcommittee today. Below are some highlights:
Off-System Bridge Eligibility
Under current law, states must use 15% of their bridge funding for bridges that are not on the federal-aid highway system. This amendment will continue to allow states to be able to use 5% of the CAIP funds on off-system bridges. This would not be a requirement, just an eligible expense under the program (with a cap). Under the language in STAA, states cannot fund any projects off the federal-aid highway system with CAIP funds.
Transferability of Federal-Aid Highway Funds
States will be allowed to transfer funding between highway programs. STAA currently allows funding to be transferred to transit accounts, but does not allow transfers between highway accounts. In current law states can transfer up to 50% of funding in most highway programs to other highway programs. This amendment restores the transferability that exists in current law.
Equitable Distribution of Funding Under the Projects of National Significance Program
This amendment adds geographic distribution and an appropriate balance of urban and rural projects to the selection criteria that the secretary uses to select projects that will be funded through the Projects of National Significance Program. This mirrors the language for selecting projects for the discretionary surface transportation grants in the economic stimulus bill.
Flexibility in Funding
Under current law, projects with an estimated cost of $500 million or more must submit a project management plan and an annual financial plan and projects with an estimated cost of $100 million or more only need to submit an annual financial plan. The amendment would change the threshold for these requirements to be $1 billion and $500 million, respectively.
Increasing Truck Weight for Sixth Axle
The amendment authorizes a state to allow by state statute a vehicle to exceed the maximum gross weight of 80,000 lb currently allowed on the interstate system routes within the state if the vehicle has six axles, meets axle weight requirements and does not exceed 97,000 lb. It allows a state to exceed the maximum axle weight requirements by no more than 2,000 lb. The amendment authorizes the U.S. DOT Secretary to terminate the operation of vehicles on a specific route if the operation poses an unreasonable risk to safety.
