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CONSOLIDATION OF HIGHWAY PROGRAMS (STAFF WORKING PAPER)

Increasing pressures to control the federal budget and to remove the federal government from state decisionmaking are reflected in recently proposed highway bills. Some of these proposals would reduce federal spending on highway and highway safety programs, and they would relax federal control over some aspects of these programs. In the current climate, consolidating today's numerous, tightly defined highway programs into fewer, more flexible programs offers a way to control federal spending while granting states more flexibility in setting priorities and selecting projects to meet them. In this session, both houses of Congress will enact new highway proposals. The Senate Public Works Committee considered two major bills that would reshape highway law: the Administration's bill and one reported by the committee. The Administration's plan eliminates some programs, and it broadens the scope of other programs so as to pick up some of the lost coverage. The Senate bill combines the present secondary system and some highway safety into a new rural program, combines the present urban program, hazard elimination, and economic development highways into a new urban program, merges parts of safety programs not consolidated elsewhere into a new safety program, and bundles most forest and public land highways into a federal lands program. The bill passed by the House would generally extend current law through fiscal year 1982. As the Congress considers various highway proposals that come before it this year and next, consolidation promises to be an important theme of continuing concern. This paper reviews current legislative proposals for highways, focusing particularly on any changes that would consolidate the many programs now in existence into fewer, more general-purpose programs. It is divided into four sections: The purpose of program consolidation; Mechanisms for consolidation; Description of alternative legislative proposals; and An evaluation of the consolidation features of these proposals. (Author)

  • Corporate Authors:

    United States Congress

    Congressional Budget Office
    Washington, DC  United States  20510
  • Publication Date: 1981-11

Media Info

  • Features: Tables;
  • Pagination: 28 p.

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00369398
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Jan 31 1983 12:00AM