Notice of Availability of Interim Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) Program Guidance as Revised by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL)

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Highway Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FHWA-2023-0036]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Notice of Availability of Interim Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) Program Guidance as Revised by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of availability of Interim Guidance; request for comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This notice announces the availability of FHWA CMAQ Program Interim Guidance (Interim Guidance). The Interim Guidance provides information and guidance on eligibility, transfer, and other CMAQ Program requirements under the BIL, enacted as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The CMAQ Program requirements in the BIL took effect on October 1, 2021, and apply to all funding obligated on or after that date, whether carryover or new. Because the CMAQ Program requirements in the BIL are in effect and the Interim Guidance contains information that is needed to plan CMAQ-funded projects and use CMAQ funds, the Interim Guidance is effective on the date of publication of this notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . The Interim Guidance replaces the November 12, 2013 Interim CMAQ Program Guidance under MAP-21 and the July 2014 Revised Interim Guidance on CMAQ Operating Assistance under MAP-21. The FHWA invites public comments on the Interim Guidance and will consider all timely comments submitted to the docket in developing final guidance. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The Interim Guidance is effective November 6, 2024. Comments must be received on or before January 6, 2025. Late comments will be considered to the extent practicable. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The Interim Guidance is available for review on <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> using the docket number noted above. To ensure that you do not duplicate your docket submissions, please submit comments by only one of the following means: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> and follow the online instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery:</E> West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. The telephone number is (202) 366-9329. • <E T="03">Instructions:</E> You must include the agency name and docket number at the beginning of your comments. All comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Cecilia Ho, Air Quality and Noise Team Leader, FHWA Office of Natural Environment, 202-366-9862, <E T="03">Cecilia.Ho@dot.gov,</E> or Lev Gabrilovich, FHWA Office of the Chief Counsel, 202 366-3813, <E T="03">Lev.Gabrilovich@dot.gov.</E> FHWA is located at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. Office hours are from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Electronic Access and Filing</HD> A copy of this notice, all comments received on this Notice, and all background material may be viewed online at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> using the docket number listed above. Electronic retrieval help and guidelines are also available at <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> An electronic copy of this document also may be downloaded from the Office of the Federal Register's website at <E T="03">www.FederalRegister.gov</E> and the Government Publishing Office's website at <E T="03">www.GovInfo.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The primary goal of the CMAQ program is to provide funding to State and local governments to support transportation projects and programs that reduce emissions of criteria pollutants and to help improve air quality for areas that are designated nonattainment or maintenance for the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone, carbon monoxide, or particulate matter (both PM <E T="52">10</E> and PM <E T="52">2.5</E> ) (23 U.S.C. 149). The BIL, enacted as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) (Pub. L. 117-58, Nov. 15, 2021), amended the CMAQ program (BIL, sec. 11115). The Interim Guidance reflects the BIL amendments and provides guidance on project eligibility requirements and addresses program administration processes and other relevant policy and regulatory requirements. The Interim Guidance replaces the November 12, 2013 Interim CMAQ Program Guidance under MAP-21  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and the July 2014 Revised Interim Guidance on CMAQ Operating Assistance under MAP-21. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/air_quality/cmaq/policy_and_guidance/2013_guidance/index.cfm</E> . </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/air_quality/cmaq/policy_and_guidance/cmaq13ig.cfm</E> . </FTNT> The Interim Guidance is available at the docket indicated above, and it is effective on the date of publication of this notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . The FHWA will consider all timely comments submitted to the docket in developing final guidance. The FHWA anticipates publishing a notice of availability of the final guidance in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Section-by-Section Analysis</HD> To facilitate review, public comments, and implementation, this notice summarizes the Interim Guidance by section. This notice also highlights changes to the CMAQ Program as amended by the BIL, and it highlights the main changes from the previous CMAQ guidance. While much of the 2013 CMAQ Interim Guidance is retained, the guidance has been reorganized to better reflect eligible CMAQ project categories. Please read the Interim Guidance for details. <HD SOURCE="HD2">1. Section I: Overview</HD> Section I is the Overview, formerly Introduction and Program Purpose sections under the 2013 Interim Guidance. Section I(A) of the Interim Guidance, CMAQ Program Purpose, describes the primary purpose of the CMAQ Program, which provides funding to State and local governments to support transportation projects and programs that reduce emissions of criteria pollutants and help improve air quality in areas that are designated under the Clean Air Act as nonattainment or maintenance areas for ozone, carbon monoxide, or particulate matter with respect to the NAAQS. (23 U.S.C. 149). Section I(B) provides background and guidance on strategic priorities and use of the Federal-aid highway formula funding. Section I(C) describes the purpose of the Interim Guidance and highlights the topics it addresses: authorization levels and apportionment; flexibility and transferability provisions available to States; project eligibility; project selection processes; program administration; annual reporting; and performance management. <HD SOURCE="HD2">2. Section II: Governing Authorities</HD> Section II of the Interim Guidance is new and lists the governing authorities. They include three sections of the BIL: section 11101(a)(1), which authorizes funds for the CMAQ program; section 11104(b)(5), which provides for apportionment of CMAQ funds under 23 U.S.C. 104; and section 11115, which amends 23 U.S.C. 149. <HD SOURCE="HD2">3. Section III: Funding and Financing CMAQ Projects and Programs</HD> This section of the Interim Guidance explains the funding and financing of CMAQ projects and programs. Section III(A) summarizes the authorization levels of the CMAQ program under the BIL (FY 2022 through FY 2026). Section III(B), formerly section IV of the 2013 Guidance, then describes the apportionment of CMAQ funds, which are apportioned to States via the method provided in the law, a priority set-aside, State flexibility (mandatory vs. flexible CMAQ funding), and a lock and dam and marine highways limitation. Some of these funds are set aside for priority use in fine particulate matter (PM <E T="52">2.5</E> ) areas to support projects and programs that reduce PM <E T="52">2.5</E> emissions. <E T="03">See</E> 23 U.S.C. 149(k). Section 149(k)(3) of title 23 U.S.C. exempts certain PM <E T="52">2.5</E> nonattainment and maintenance areas from the PM <E T="52">2.5</E> set-aside requirements, based on population size and other criteria. Section III.B.3, formerly section V.D. in the 2013 Interim Guidance, addresses mandatory versus flexible funds. While States must use CMAQ funds to support eligible projects and programs in nonattainment and maintenance areas (23 U.S.C. 149(b)), all States receive a minimum amount of CMAQ funds regardless of the nonattainment and maintenance area status. States that do not have any nonattainment or maintenance areas have additional flexibility in how and where they can obligate CMAQ funds. The Interim Guidance adds new language in Section III.B.4 to address a limitation added in the BIL that caps State obligations for lock and dam and marine highway projects (newly eligible under 23 U.S.C. 149(b)(10) and 149(b)(11)) for each fiscal year at no more than 10 percent of CMAQ funds apportioned to the State. 23 U.S.C. 149(c)(4). Section III(C) of the Interim Guidance, formerly section V.F., addresses the Federal share. Like other Federal-aid programs, CMAQ Federal share is typically 80 percent; however, there are some exceptio ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 22k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━