Feds downplay policy that discourages infrastructure funds for new highways

Amid fresh controversy surrounding a December Federal Highway Administration memo, the U.S. Department of Transportation said the memo does not in fact restrict the use of infrastructure funds for new highway capacity projects as feared by some state transportation advocates.

The controversy stems from a Dec. 16 FHWA memo that advised states to spend federal infrastructure funds on maintenance and repair instead of new highway capacity, a so-called ‘fix it first’ policy.

State departments of transportation are pushing back against the guidance, saying fast-growing states need new highway space. A group of Republican governors also challenged the policy in a Jan. 16 letter to President Biden.

Earlier this week, Republican Sens. Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham weighed in, saying the policy goes against their intent in voting for the bill.

The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure and Investment Act’s “largest single investment was in highways,” Romney, a Republican from Utah who helped craft the bill, said Tuesday during a Senate budget hearing on the nomination of Shalanda D. Young as director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“You can imagine our surprise when we saw the Department of Transportation indicating that the highway money can’t be used for increasing the capacity of highways.”

Slower-growing states like New York and New Jersey may not need the new capacity, but it’s badly needed by fast-growing states like Florida, South Carolina and Utah, Romney said. “We need to increase the capacity in our highways or we’re not going to see the economic growth that we projected as part of the bill.”

“In South Carolina, we need all the highways we can get,” Graham told Young. “A lot of us who voted for that bill expected the states to have the flexibility that they had in the past.”

Young said she would “absolutely” look into it and “was happy to take your concerns” back to the FHWA.

In response to a request for comment, a DOT spokesperson described the Dec. 16 document as an “internal memo” that does not in fact prohibit new highway construction.

“The policy memo issued by FHWA does not adopt a ‘fix it first’ mandate or even use that phrase,” the spokesperson said in an email. “It is an internal memo to FHWA staff and it clearly tells FHWA staff that it ‘does not prohibit the construction of new general purpose capacity on highways or bridges.’”

The memo instead “lays out some common sense factors to be considered when capacity expansions are proposed, such as how the state is doing at maintaining its existing roads and bridges and whether less expensive interventions could address the congestion problem,” the spokesperson said.

In a Jan. 30 editorial, the Wall Street Journal called the memo a “bait and switch on Congressional Republicans who backed the infrastructure deal mainly because it would expand and improve surface transportation.”

“States and cities will continue to seek highway expansions, and some may secure funding,” the editorial said. “But don’t be surprised when federal agencies continue to steer “bipartisan” infrastructure funds toward progressive priorities.”