HR-5711-119
Referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
Sponsored by Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA)
What it does
This bill would amend federal transportation planning law (Titles 23 and 49 of the U.S. Code) to require that metropolitan and statewide transportation plans use publicly available, criteria-based processes to rank and categorize projects by performance. It would require that Transportation Improvement Programs (the prioritized lists of projects scheduled for funding) draw primarily from the highest-ranked projects. If a lower-ranked project is included ahead of a higher-ranked one, the responsible agency would be required to publish a written explanation, including whether the decision was based on geographic balance or the project's location in an economically distressed area.
Who benefits
Residents and advocacy groups who want to understand how transportation dollars are allocated. Taxpayers broadly, who would gain visibility into project selection decisions. Higher-performing projects and their surrounding communities, which would receive a structural preference in funding queues. Communities in economically distressed areas, which are explicitly named as a recognized justification for prioritization. Journalists, researchers, and watchdog organizations that monitor government spending. Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) that already use data-driven selection processes and would see their approach codified into law.
Who is hurt
State and local transportation agencies that currently have broad discretion in project selection and would face new documentation and justification requirements. Politically connected projects or lower-performing projects that have historically been included in improvement programs without public explanation. Smaller or rural planning agencies with limited staff capacity that may struggle to implement new transparency and categorization processes. Projects selected primarily for political or geographic reasons, which would now require a public written justification.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue that federal transportation funding — which runs into hundreds of billions of dollars — has long been allocated through opaque processes that allow political considerations to override performance data, resulting in lower-value projects displacing higher-value ones. They contend that requiring public criteria-based categorization and written justifications for exceptions would bring accountability to a system where the public currently has little visibility, and that the bill's explicit carve-outs for geographic balance and economically distressed areas preserve necessary flexibility while still demanding transparency.
Opponents argue
Opponents argue that transportation planning already involves extensive public participation requirements under existing federal law, and that adding mandatory performance categorization and written justifications imposes new administrative burdens on state and local agencies without providing additional federal resources to meet them. They contend that transportation decisions inherently involve tradeoffs — equity, geography, community need — that resist reduction to a single performance ranking, and that mandating a hierarchy of "highest performing" projects could systematically disadvantage rural areas, smaller communities, or projects with diffuse benefits that score poorly on quantitative metrics.
Constitutional context
Congress has broad authority to attach conditions to federal transportation funding under the Commerce Clause (Art. I, §8, cl. 3) and the Spending Clause (Art. I, §8, cl. 1), as affirmed in South Dakota v. Dole (1987). This bill imposes procedural requirements on state and local agencies as conditions of receiving federal transportation funds, which is a well-established exercise of that authority. No active constitutional tension is implicated.
Checks and balances
Congress gains authority by setting new procedural conditions on federal transportation funding; state and local transportation agencies and Metropolitan Planning Organizations retain discretion over actual project selection but must publicly document and justify deviations from performance rankings.
Historical precedent
The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21, 2012) established a performance-based planning framework for federal transportation programs, requiring states and MPOs to set targets tied to national goals — a related but less prescriptive transparency requirement than this bill proposes.