U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration

MEMORANDUM

For FY 2008, Section 1101(a)(13) of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU, Public Law 109-59) authorized $65,000,000 for Construction of Ferry Boats and Ferry Terminal Facilities. Under the provisions of Section 186 of Division K of the FY 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act (Public Law 110-161), all FBD funds for FY 2008, excluding the $20 million set-aside for marine highway systems on the National Highway System in the States of Alaska, New Jersey and Washington, that are in excess of the amounts needed to fund 98 percent of the designated amounts for the eligible projects listed in the Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the Consolidated Appropriations Act, are rescinded. Therefore, $13,609,620 of the $65,000,000 is rescinded, leaving an authorization of $51,390,380 for FY 2008.

In addition, under the provisions of Section 120(e), Redistribution of Certain Authorized Funds, of Division K of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, any authorized funds, which are not available for obligation due to the imposition of an obligation limitation, are not allocated for the FBD program, but are redistributed to the States in accordance with Section 120(e). For FY 2008, the obligation limitation is 92.4 percent. Therefore, only $47,484,711 will be available for the FBD program for FY 2008. After the deduction for the mandatory $20 million set-aside for Alaska, New Jersey and Washington in 23 U.S.C. 147(d), only $27,484,711 is available to fund these FY 2008 FBD designated projects. Each designated amount in the Joint Explanatory Statement has to be proportionally reduced accordingly. The award amounts indicated in Attachment 1 are the reduced amounts.

At this time, we request States to submit applications for the projects designated in the Joint Explanatory Statement, which are those listed in Attachment 1. Only those States with projects listed in Attachment 1 need to respond to this solicitation. Please do not submit any applications for projects that are not listed in Attachment 1. The applications must be submitted electronically in MS Word format (see Attachment 2). Because these projects were designated for funding by Congress, the short form of the project application is being used, and requires completion of only 12 items.

Please note that Congress did not declare these designated projects eligible "notwithstanding any other provision of law," as they have done in recent years. In addition, Section 186 specifies that only the eligible designated projects shall be funded. Therefore, the projects must still meet the eligibility requirements under 23 U.S.C. 147(a) and 23 U.S.C. 129(c). This issue should be addressed in Item 9 of the application.

Project applications must be received in Headquarters no later than March 31, 2008. When submitting the State's project applications, the division office shall transmit them via email to Larry Beidel (larry.beidel@dot.gov) of my staff. Your email transmittal should include:

1. a statement from the division office that the State's submittal has been reviewed by the division office and that it meets the submission requirements;
2. the State transportation department's submission email or letter to the FHWA division office; and
3. each MS Word application as an attachment.

Information on the FBD program is included as Attachment 3 to this memorandum. This contains background information on the program including eligibility and selection criteria, as well as the submission requirements. This solicitation memorandum will also be posted on our FHWA website at www.fhwa.dot.gov/discretionary.

If there are any questions, please contact Larry Beidel (202-366-4653) of my staff.

Attachments

• Earmarking in FY2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act
• FY 2008 Project Application
• Program Information

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HIPA-1 (Horne) HIPA-10 (Beidel) HIPA-10 (Barone) HIF-1 (Gee)
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