Uniform Procedures for State Highway Safety Grant Programs

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>23 CFR Part 1300</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2025-0061]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2127-AM73</RIN> <SUBJECT>Uniform Procedures for State Highway Safety Grant Programs</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This action proposes revisions to certain documentation requirements relating to public participation and engagement in the Uniform Procedures for State Highway Safety Grant Programs. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments in response to this notice of proposed rulemaking must be submitted by October 20, 2025. In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, NHTSA is also seeking comment on revisions to an existing information collection. For additional information, see the Paperwork Reduction Act section under the Regulatory Notices and Analyses section below. All comments relating to the information collection requirements should be submitted to NHTSA and to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the address listed in the <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> section on or before October 20, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit written comments, identified by docket number or RIN, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> 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, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, Room W12-140, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. E.T., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call 202-366-9826 before coming. Comments on the proposed information collection requirements should be submitted to: Office of Management and Budget at <E T="03">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.</E> To find this particular information collection, select “Currently under Review—Open for Public Comment” or use the search function. It is requested that comments sent to the OMB also be sent to the NHTSA rulemaking docket identified in the heading of this document. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All written submissions must include the agency name and docket number or Regulatory Information Number (RIN) for this rulemaking. Note that all comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. For detailed instructions on sending comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the “Public Participation” heading of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket go to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> at any time or to 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal Holidays. Telephone: 202-366-9826. <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> Please see the Privacy Act heading under Regulatory Analyses and Notices. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> <E T="03">Program issues:</E> Barbara Sauers, Associate Administrator, Regional Operations and Program Delivery, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Telephone number: (202) 366-0144; Email: <E T="03">barbara.sauers@dot.gov.</E> <E T="03">Legal issues:</E> Megan Brown, Attorney-Advisor, Office of the Chief Counsel, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590; Email: <E T="03">megan.brown@dot.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Department of Transportation Request for Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Proposal</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Request for Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Regulatory Analyses and Notices</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> NHTSA and its State highway safety grant program recipients share a joint mission of saving lives and preventing injuries from motor vehicle crashes. NHTSA projects that an estimated 39,345 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2024; this marks the third consecutive year of decreasing traffic fatalities. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> These reductions in fatality rates attest to the important work that NHTSA and the States can achieve together through the highway safety grant program. To support States in their administration of highway safety grants funds, NHTSA seeks to apply reasonable administrative requirements necessary to carry out the agency's responsibilities as a steward of taxpayer funds while minimizing administrative burdens on States so they can focus efforts on implementing needed highway safety programs. When, in the course of administering the grant program, NHTSA identifies an administrative requirement that is unduly burdensome or duplicative, NHTSA will take action to minimize that burden where possible. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  National Center for Statistics and Analysis (April 2025), Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2024 (Traffic Safety Facts Crash•Stats Brief Statistical Summary, Report No. DOT HS 813 710), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, <E T="03">available at https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813710.</E> </FTNT> In the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> Congress created a new requirement that State highway safety programs funded by NHTSA highway safety grants “result[ ] from meaningful public participation and engagement from affected communities, particularly those most significantly impacted by traffic crashes resulting in injuries and fatalities.”  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> NHTSA implemented the public participation and engagement (PP&E) requirement in the highway safety grant program through a final rule published on February 6, 2023. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Public Law 117-58 (Nov. 15, 2021). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  23 U.S.C. 402(b)(1)(B). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  88 FR 7780 (Feb. 6, 2023). </FTNT> Under the current grant program regulation, States demonstrate compliance with the statutory public participation and engagement requirement in two program submissions: the triennial Highway Safety Plan (triennial HSP) and the Annual Report. In the triennial HSP, a State must provide a description of its plan for PP&E efforts in its highway safety planning process and describe the outcomes of the activities carried out as a result of that plan. A State must also describe the State's plan for continuing public participation and engagement activities throughout the three years covered by the triennial HSP. 23 CFR 1300.11(b)(2). In order to ensure the public participation and engagement described in the triennial HSP plays a role in the State's highway safety program throughout the three-year life of the plan, NHTSA requires States to describe in the Annual Report how the projects that were implemented were informed by the State's public participation and engagement. 23 CFR 1300.35(b)(2). The final rule was the result of extensive efforts to facilitate opportunities for States and other stakeholders to provide input throughout the rulemaking process, including a published request for comments and public hearings on top of the usual notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) and comment period. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> As a result of this outreach, NHTSA sought to create a flexible structure that met the intent of the statutory requirement without dictating or limiting how States conducted PP&E efforts. During the public comment process and after publication of the rule, many States asked NHTSA for more specific examples of how to identify affected communities and conduct PP&E or for NHTSA to share best practices. Therefore, NHTSA continued its outreach to States on the PP&E requirement after publication of the final rule by offering several training opportunities and by providing technical assistance to States upon request. In addition, NHTSA staff engage in outreach through national and regional meetings and conferences with States, regular interactions with States at a regional office level, and regularly scheduled check-ins with interested stakeholder organizations. <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  Uniform Procedures for State Highway Safety Grant Programs, Notification of public meetings; request for comments (RFC), 87 FR 23780 (Apr. 21, 2022); Notice of proposed rulemaking, 87 FR 56756 (Sept. 15, 2022). </FTNT> As a result of these outreach efforts and feedback received, NHTSA recognizes the need to consider adjusting the PP&E documentation requirements to be more aligned with the varying resources and needs of the different State highway safety offices. Though participation by affected communities is an administrative priority and a statutory requirement of NHTSA's grant funds (23 U.S.C. 402(b)(1)(B)), NHTSA acknowledges that some PP&E reporting requirements could be reduced. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Department of Transportation Request for Information</HD> On May 5, 2025, DOT published a request for information (RFI) seeking comments and information to assist DOT in identifying existing regulations, guidance, paperwork requirements, and other regulatory obligations that can be modified or repealed, consistent with law, to ensure that ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 43k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━