“On August 10, 2005, the President signed into law the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). With guaranteed funding for highways, highway safety, and public transportation totaling $244.1 billion, SAFETEA-LU represents the largest surface transportation investment in our Nation's history. The two landmark bills that brought surface transportation into the 21st century—the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) and the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21)—shaped the highway program to meet the Nation's changing transportation needs. SAFETEA-LU builds on this firm foundation, supplying the funds and refining the programmatic framework for investments needed to maintain and grow our vital transportation infrastructure.
SAFETEA-LU addresses the many challenges facing our transportation system today – challenges such as improving safety, reducing traffic congestion, improving efficiency in freight movement, increasing intermodal connectivity, and protecting the environment – as well as laying the groundwork for addressing future challenges. ^1
Conducting an efficient and effective environmental review process requires coordination and collaboration between State transportation agencies and resource agencies. However, numerous demands on resource agency staff time often limit the ability of staff to participate in State transportation project planning or to expedite project reviews. Section 1309 of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), which was enacted in 1998, mandated an environmental streamlining process that improved transportation project delivery while protecting and enhancing the environment. One of the key elements of this process was cooperation between transportation and environmental resource agencies to develop and adhere to realistic project-development timeframes. Recognizing insufficient staff levels as a barrier to streamlining the environmental review process, TEA-21 allowed States to use Federal-aid project funds to provide additional resources to agencies that participate in the process, including Federal and State agencies and federally recognized Indian Tribes.
Building on and expanding the TEA-21 foundation, SAFETEA-LU was signed into law in August 2005. Several SAFETEA-LU provisions focused on improving efficiency in the highway program and project delivery. The Act also maintained Federal-aid project funds to support expedited environmental review and expanded eligibility of funding to include transportation planning activities. As outlined in SAFETEA-LU Section 6002 and codified in 23 USC Section 139(j), activities for which funds may be provided include transportation planning activities that precede the initiation of the environmental review process, dedicated staffing, training of agency personnel, information-gathering and mapping, and development of programmatic agreements.
In many cases, such funds have been used to employ staff at resource agencies who are dedicated to working on State DOT projects. The terms 'funded positions,' 'external liaisons,' and 'funded liaisons' refer to dedicated staff (commonly housed at regulatory or resource agencies) funded by State DOTs to work on matters such as expedited project review and delivery." ^2
1 Source: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/safetealu/summary.htm
2 Source: http://www.environment.fhwa.dot.gov/strmlng/fundedPositionsReport/report.asp