The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 (Public Law 90-495; 82 Stat. 815) is legislation enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law on August 24, 1968, which expanded the Interstate Highway System by ; provided funding for new interstate, primary, and secondary roads in the United States; explicitly applied the environmental protections of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966 to federal highway projects; and applied the Davis–Bacon Act to all highway construction funded by the federal government. It established three new programs: a National Bridge Inspection Program, funding and fair housing standards for those displaced by federally funded highway construction, and a traffic operations study program.
Legislative history
Factors leading to the bill
The federal law authorizing the construction and funding of the Interstate Highway System did not expire until 1970. However, 1968 was a presidential and congressional election year, and President Lyndon B. Johnson wished to see the Democratically controlled United States Congress pass highway reauthorization legislation that would demonstrate that he and members of his party were governing effectively and able to secure federal dollars for local projects. The bill reauthorizing the Interstate System was drafted by the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT). Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) administrator Lowell K. Bridwell—known to be skeptical of excessive highway constructionSchrag, p. 126.—heavily lobbied for the bill.Rose & Mohl, p. 145.
The highway aid bill was subject to a number of pressures. First, President Johnson had frozen $600 million in federal highway funds in January in part to reduce inflationary pressures but in part to appease environmentalists and others opposed to the expansion of the national highway system. Second, a major citizens' revolt against the construction of freeways in and around Washington, D.C., had broken out, and courts had recently ruled against construction of the "Inner Loop" system of spoke-and-hub freeways and the Three Sisters Bridge. Members of Congress on the House Public Works Committee, many of whom had strong ties to the highway construction industry, wanted Congress to legislatively suspend federal environmental and transportation law and require the District of Columbia to build the freeways and bridge.
Congressional consideration
In the United States House of Representatives, H.R. 16788 was the primary vehicle for the legislation, although numerous other bills were introduced which would cancel or require various projects around the country. Among these was legislation required the District of Columbia to complete its unbuilt Interstate Highway System (the Inner Loop). In June, Representative John C. Kluczynski, chair of the Public Works Subcommittee on Roads, announced his subcommittee was likely to report out legislation requiring that the Three Sisters Bridge be built. His strategy for winning passage of the bill was to add it as an amendment to the Federal-Aid Highway Act reauthorization. Kluczynski's strategy worked: The powerful House Rules Committee approved the highway bill for debate with the Inner Loop and bridge restrictions included.
Consideration of the legislation in the Senate, meanwhile, was far less contentious. Several stand-alone pieces of legislation (S. 3381, S. 2888, S. 3418) were introduced in the United States Senate to advance various highway aid reauthorization schemes. On July 1, the Senate passed a bill that was very much like the administration's proposal, with only minor changes. It provided for a two-year, $11.4 billion reauthorization of the Federal-Aid Highway Act, with $5.5 billion to be spent in 1970 and $5.8 billion in 1971. Only $3.8 billion was new money; the bill carried over $7.6 billion in unspent funds from the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1966. The expenditures authorized included $3.6 billion in each of the two years for interstate construction, and $1.2 billion in 1970 and $1.4 billion in 1971 for the federal government's primary and secondary road building programs. The Senate bill added an administration-requested program to ease the impact of urban highways by providing funds for the acquisition of rights-of-way so that no development would occur on them. Additionally, funds were provided to assist states in paying homeowners for their land or to help them with relocation costs. Requirements that residents be relocated in decent, safe, and sanitary housing. (Many states had offered relocation only in substandard or environmentally compromised housing, or not at all.) The Senate bill also provided $170 million for implementing the Highway Beautification Act.
The House, however, was in a budget cutting mood. It passed the highway bill on July 3. This legislation eliminated all funding for of the Highway Beautification Act; eliminated the ban on building federally funded highways in parks, wildlife refuges, historic sites, and other protected areas; and banned the executive branch from administratively freezing the expenditure of funds. Additionally, the House bill required that D.C. complete its highway system, added to the interstate system, and funded a Maryland proposal to construct a Fort Washington Parkway along the north/eastern shore of the Potomac River from the D.C. boundary south to Fort Washington, Maryland.
Conference committee and presidential approval
A conference committee was established to reconcile the two bills. One of the main points of contention in the conference committee was the requirement that D.C. build its freeways and bridges. Members of the Senate worried that this would set a precedent in which Congress would become involved in planning the routes of highways and location of bridges throughout the country. Members of the House, however, argued that the United States Constitution gave Congress authority over the District of Columbia, and that city officials were attempting to thwart the will of Congress. Another issue of contention was highway beautification. A favored program of First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, Democrats believed that the funds had been deleted by Republicans as retaliation against the administration. In a compromise, the conference committee restored $25 million in funds, but only for 1970. The conference committee bill was reported back to the Senate and House on July 24. The conference committee agreed to scale back the expansion of the interstate highway system to from . Although it included language explicitly applying the Department of Transportation Act of 1966's environmental, wildlife, and historic site protections to all highways constructed with federal funds, it limited these protections only to publicly owned sites.
The House adopted the conference committee bill on July 26, and the Senate on July 29.
The federal highway aid bill proved contentious. The New York Times noted that the bill was unnecessary, since federal highway legislation was not due to expire until 1972. It declared the bill so flawed that it asked President Johnson to veto it. Walter Washington, mayor-commissioner of the District of Columbia, also asked Johnson to veto the bill. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall hinted that he found the relaxation of environmental protections so odious that he, too, would counsel Johnson to veto the bill. The pressure on Johnson was so intense that many observers believed the president would pocket veto the bill.
President Johnson, however, signed the bill into law on August 24, 1968, just hours before a pocket veto would have taken effect.
Provisions of the act
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 reauthorized the construction of the Interstate Highway System and the federal highway construction aid program through 1974. The 1968 act essentially set the boundaries of the 46,000 mile interstate highway system as it existed in 2011.Swift, p. 290. The act's provisions were so distinctive, transportation policy experts Mark Rose and Raymond Mohl conclude that the act "dramatically altered the highway-building landscape".Rose& Mohl, p. 146.
The act authorized expenditures of $21.3 billion over two years, and appropriated funds in the following amounts: $4 billion in fiscal 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1973 and $2.225 billion in fiscal 1974 for interstate highway construction. $1.1 billion in fiscal 1970 and 1971 for primary, secondary, and urban highway construction. Forty-five percent of expenditures would be on primary roads, 30 percent on secondary roads, and 25 percent on urban primary and secondary roads. Another $125 million was authorized out of the Highway Trust Fund for fiscal 1970 and 1971 for construction exclusively of non-urban primary and secondary roads, with 60 percent of the funds going to primary roads and 40 percent for secondary roads. $200 million in fiscal 1970 and 1971 for the Traffic Operations Program to Improve Capacity and Safety (TOPICS) program. $100 million in fiscal 1970 and 1971 for right-of-way acquisition. $75 million in fiscal 1970 and $100 million 1971 for highway safety programs $33 million in fiscal 1970 and 1971 for construction of roads in national forests $30 million in fiscal 1970 and 1971 for construction of roads and bridges on Native American lands $25 million in fiscal 1970 for highway beautification. $16 million in fiscal 1970 and 1971 for construction of roads on public lands $1 million in fiscal 1970 for construction of parkways Interstate expansion: The act authorized construction of an additional of interstate highway, bringing the system total to . Most of the expansion was for suburban beltways.Gutfreund, p. 102. Section 139 of the act permitted DOT to designate as an Interstate Highway any road meeting all standards for interstate highways and which connect to and are logical additions to the Interstate Highway System. These additions were not to be included in the Interstate Highway System mileage cap of . DOT was also authorized to make minor modifications to the Interstate Highway System routes up to a total of . Diversion of funds: Under what became known as the Howard-Cramer amendment to Section 103(e)(2), states were permitted to substitute an existing road for a planned interstate route so long as the planned route was not essential to a "unified" interstate system and so long as the road was not a toll road.Weiner, p. 110, 131.
Among the new programs created by the act were: