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Impact of Sec. 1310, “Uniform Transferability of Federal-aid Highway Funds”

• The Safety Set Aside remains a 10% set aside from the Surface Transportation Program (after certain take downs), as in ISTEA. Overall safety set aside funding (that is the combined total of Grade Crossing, Hazard Elimination, and "Optional" categories) should be greater each year under TEA-21 compared to ISTEA funding levels, due to the growth in total STP funding. The 10% safety set aside remains the minimum amount of Federal funds available to States for infrastructure safety. Other sources may be used for infrastructure safety improvements such as NHS, IM, and STP at the State's option.

• Distribution of funds within the STP safety set aside categories is unchanged. The amount of funding "dedicated" (i.e., reserved specifically) for Sec. 152 and Sec. 130 will be unchanged from ISTEA dollar levels. Only the "optional" category will increase. Like ISTEA, TEA-21 did not provide separate authorizations for the Railway- Highway Crossings (Sec. 130) or Hazard Elimination (Sec. 152) programs.* The grade crossing program is still guaranteed funding at 1991 levels (as in ISTEA)**; as is the hazard elimination program. All safety set aside funds allocated to the State in excess of the two programs 1991 dollar levels will go into an "optional" category created within the safety set aside -- for use for either Sec 130 or 152 activities at the State"s option. (No formal transfer required.) Funding in the "optional" category will change year to year depending on the overall size of the safety set aside.

• The ability of a State to transfer funds BETWEEN and OUT of the STP Safety Set Aside categories is CHANGED under TEA-21. States can no longer transfer funds between Section 152 and 130 funds or transfer funds from these two programs out of the STP safety set aside. Transfer is restricted only to funds in the "optional" category of the STP safety set aside. No transfer of "optional" funds outside the safety set aside is allowed unless "optional" funding exceeds the amount of "optional" funding the State received in FY 1997 (and FY 1997 "optional" apportionments were exceptionally large due to Treasury Dept. adjustments made that year***). Then only 25% of the "optional" funds above the 1997 "optional" total can be transferred to IM, CMAQ, NHS, National Recreational Trails, or the Bridge programs.

*Section 1108 (STP) of TEA-21 did not change Section 1007(a) of ISTEA which provided that 10 % of the funds apportioned to the State for STP shall be available to carry out Sec. 130 and 152 programs and from that 10%, each State shall reserve for each program an amount not less than the funds apportioned to the State in FY 1991 for that program. (According to FHWA Counsel, "reservations" are treated as apportionments.)

**Similarly, the ISTEA requirement that States reserve half of their Sec. 130 funds for protective devices still stands. Grade crossing improvements can be funded by Sec. 152 if identified in State's hazardous location survey.

***In FY97, the "optional" safety set aside category was $285,229,220, compared to $ 205,074,177 in FY98.