The Legislative and Regulatory Rundown

Infrastructure Bill Invests Millions in Safety Programs

By Adrienne Gildea, CAE, Deputy Executive Director, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance

In November 2021, after months of debates and negotiations, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. While the bill is largely focused on infrastructure investment, with $1 trillion dedicated to various initiatives and priorities, it also included a five-year surface transportation reauthorization. The reauthorization makes several policy changes impacting commercial motor vehicle safety programs; however, the big story is the significant increase in funding for the commercial motor carrier safety grants and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

The Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) will see an increase of more than $80 million in the first year of the authorization, going from $308.7 million to $390.5 million. The High Priority grant program increases from $45.9 million to $57.6 million, and the Commercial Driver’s License Program Implementation grant program increased from $33.2 million to $41.8 million. All three programs see modest increases in the subsequent years of the authorization as well.

This legislation presents a rare opportunity to make a significant impact on roadway safety. The investment and opportunity come at a critical time, as we see crashes and fatalities on the nation’s roadways increasing. Report after report tells us that people are driving faster and more recklessly, and we are seeing the results of that behavior in the crash and fatality rates. The first half of 2021 saw the largest increase in roadway fatalities ever recorded – a nearly 20% increase over the same time period in the previous year.

Stakeholders throughout the transportation safety field are working to understand this alarming data and figure out how to address the trend. FMCSA is reaching out to the states and other stakeholders to identify creative ways to invest those funds in programs that advance its critical safety mission as swiftly and effectively as possible. The agency is looking for ways to reach more motor carriers, more quickly and with better precision, and is encouraging jurisdictions to do the same, with an emphasis on high-visibility traffic enforcement and other tactics proven to have a direct impact on safety. FMCSA is also exploring how to improve new entrant safety audits and compliance reviews, and it is looking for new ideas from the jurisdictions.

One of the biggest challenges the states and FMCSA will face is how to invest the additional MCSAP funds quickly. While other transportation programs can focus funds on hard infrastructure, like roads and bridges, MCSAP is a program driven by people – and hiring and training people takes time. The states will have to balance the desire to staff up programs and deploy more enforcement personnel with the need to ensure long-term program stability. While the next five years will see historically high funding levels for MCSAP, the jurisdictions are unsure about what comes after that: Will the funds remain at these levels or will they be reduced, forcing them to eliminate positions in just a few years?

In addition, the grants come with match and maintenance-of-effort requirements. This means that states will have to come up with a lot of additional money to access the federal funds. The jurisdictions are working with FMCSA to try to address these and other challenges to investing Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funds. These challenges, while real, are not insurmountable and those in the commercial motor vehicle safety community do not want to miss this opportunity to better serve the shared mission of reducing crashes, injuries and fatalities on our roadways. n