The Nation

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Dash camera footage from an Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP) trooper’s car shows the moment he struck the rear of a tractor-trailer along Interstate 70 in Columbus. OSHP officials said the trailer’s rear impact guard likely helped save the life of trooper Jarid Fitzpatrick, 25, who slammed into it in the early morning hours of Dec. 15. Fitzpatrick, who was not on call at the time of the accident, was hospitalized in serious condition but is expected to recover. The truck driver, Thomas Ervin, 58, of Heath, Ohio, was not hurt. Fitzpatrick called for assistance on his radio following the crash, which sandwiched the front half of his cruiser underneath the semi-trailer. The cause of the accident has not been released and is still under investigation.

DENVER  — An online petition has gathered millions of signatures calling for leniency for a 26-year-old truck driver who was sentenced to 110 years in prison for vehicular homicide in an explosive accident at the base of a Colorado mountain highway that killed four people in 2019. More than 4.5 million people had signed the change.org petition urging Gov. Jared Polis to grant clemency or commute Rogel Aguilera-Mederos’ sentence by Tuesday, The Denver Gazette reports. Truckers nationwide have voiced outrage over the sentence on Twitter, using the hashtags #NoTrucksToColorado and #NoTrucksColorado, among others. Meanwhile, First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King, whose office prosecuted the case, filed a motion asking the court to schedule a hearing to reconsider the sentence, her office said Tuesday. The motion states that Colorado law allows reconsideration “in an exceptional case involving unusual and extenuating circumstances” but didn’t elaborate. Prosecutors are consulting with victims in the case to get their input prior to any proceedings, the motion states. King had said after sentencing she would welcome a reconsideration of the punishment. But she also told The Denver Post that Aguilera-Mederos didn’t accept efforts to negotiate a plea deal, and that the convictions recognized the harm caused to victims of the crash. The Democratic governor’s office said it would welcome an application for clemency, while Aguilera-Mederos’ attorney told KDVR-TV that a request could take time because the sentence was just handed down Dec. 13. Aguilera-Mederos was convicted in October of vehicular homicide and other charges stemming from the April 25, 2019, crash. He testified that he was hauling lumber when the brakes on his semitrailer failed as he was descending a steep grade of Interstate 70 in the Rocky Mountain foothills. His truck plowed into vehicles that had slowed because of another wreck in the Denver suburb of Lakewood. He was traveling at least 85 mph on a part of the interstate where commercial vehicles are limited to 45 mph. The chain-reaction wreck involving 28 vehicles ruptured gas tanks, causing a fireball that consumed vehicles and melted pars of the highway. Prosecutors argued that as Aguilera-Mederos’ truck barreled down from the mountains, he could have used a runaway ramp alongside the interstate that is designed to safely stop vehicles that have lost their brakes. Aguilera-Mederos testified he was struggling to avoid traffic and to shift his truck into lower gears to slow it down. In imposing the sentence, District Court Judge Bruce Jones said it was the mandatory minimum term set forth under state law — and suggested a lesser punishment was warranted. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws required that sentences on 27 counts of vehicular assault, assault, reckless driving and other charges run consecutively. “I will state that if I had the discretion, it would not be my sentence,” the judge said. Polis’ office issued a statement saying that “we welcome an application from Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos and will expedite consideration but have not received one yet at this time.” Aguilera-Mederos’ attorney, James Colgan, told The Post he intends to appeal the jury’s verdict and that any application for clemency or leniency would have to wait pending that appeal. Among other factors, an application requires input from the Department of Corrections. The crash killed 24-year-old Miguel Angel Lamas Arellano, 67-year-old William Bailey, 61-year-old Doyle Harrison and 69-year-old Stanley Politano. Relatives of victims said at Aguilera-Mederos’ sentencing he should serve time for the crimes. Duane Bailey, the brother of William Bailey, asked the judge to sentence Aguilera-Mederos to at least 20 years, the Post reported. “He made a deliberate and intentional decision that his life was more important than everyone else on the road that day,” Bailey said. Bailey’s wife, Gage Evans, told The New York Times the driver’s sentence shouldn’t be commuted but that lawmakers should instead examine the sentencing laws. “This person should spend some time in prison and think about his actions,” Evans said, adding she and other victims’ relatives object to a “public narrative” that Aguilera-Mederos is a victim. “We are truly the victims,” she said. Aguilera-Mederos wept as he apologized to the victims’ families at his sentencing. He asked for their forgiveness. “I am not a murderer. I am not a killer. When I look at my charges, we are talking about a murderer, which is not me,” he said. “I have never thought about hurting anybody in my entire life.” The Trucker News Staff contributed to this report.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — A shortage of truck drivers, which began years before the COVID-19 pandemic worsened it and revealed supply chain gaps around the world, is driving starting wages into the six-figures and prompting renewed talk of allowing younger drivers to cross state lines behind the wheels of heavy trucks. The chief operating officer of CRST, a national trucking company based in Cedar Rapids, said he could find local market jobs for 1,000 more drivers if were able to hire that many. “There’s just that much demand out there,” COO Michael Gannon told the Cedar Rapids Gazette. The American Trucking Association estimates there’s an overall need to fill about 80,000 trucking jobs to meet the country’s demand. A study done by the association reports that the need could double by 2028, leading to 160,000 jobs to fill. Gannon said CRST, which he has been with for 38 years, has over 6,000 drivers spread out across multiple divisions around the nation with some driving interstate, but most traveling out and back less than 200 miles a day. He said the biggest industry change in the last few years has been getting drivers more time at home, instead of having them on jobs requiring them to be gone for days or even weeks at a time. “Getting drivers home daily or weekly, depending on the job, has been the goal,” he said. “We are doing our best to work toward that because that is the lifestyle drivers want, so it’s about getting more accelerated there.” Gannon said getting drivers home more often and raising pay rates are attempts to draw new people into the industry. Though the driver shortage predates the pandemic, the past year and a half period has been the most challenging he has faced in his career, Gannon said. “The crush of supply chain issues has finally put a push on the industry to raise rates and we’ve seen a huge increase in driver compensation in the past year, the biggest I’ve ever seen by far,” Gannon said. “But the challenge is there is a fight among all carriers for a shrinking pool of drivers. The silver lining, however, is drivers are now getting paid what they deserve.” Trucking companies across the country and in Iowa — including CRST, Heartland Express, Ruan, TMC and others — have boosted driver pay since the pandemic to stay competitive. Truck drivers around the nation are seeing pay increases in the tens of thousands, and students are being offered six-figure salaries as soon as they finish training programs. Kevonte Brown finished the truck driving training program last month at Kirkwood Community College. The 22-year-old living in Iowa City works for Carew Trucking and Landscaping in North Liberty. Brown, originally from Chicago, moved to Iowa when he started high school but then moved to the warmer Atlanta due to having sickle-cell anemia, which makes colder temperatures hard on his body. He said he moved back to Iowa recently just to get his commercial driver’s license from Kirkwood. “I was looking at trucking schools down South, but that would’ve come out of my own pocket. So I thought, why not come here and get my education for free?” Brown asked. “One of my friends opened my eyes to the gap-tuition program through Kirkwood and Iowa Workforce.” Under the program, partial or full tuition is provided for qualifying students pursuing certificates at the state’s community colleges for in-demand careers. Besides helping with trucking and transportation certificates, the program considers applications for other career training including health care, manufacturing, construction and information technology. Brown said every job he had looked at in the industry after finishing the program paid well. “I had a company offer me six figures to come drive trucks with them,” he said. “I didn’t accept it right now because I’m trying to get back to living in warm weather, so I didn’t want to join them and then leave.” Brown said that no matter where he ends up living, he is confident he will be able to find a high-paying job. “I really did have companies calling me left and right like bill collectors,” he said. “They like that I’m young. They really want the new generation to come and take over. Anywhere I move in the U.S. or the world, I know I will never have to worry about a job.” Brown is the target demographic for many trucking companies in Iowa and around the country, as many truck drivers are getting to the age of retirement. The average age of a driver in Iowa is 58, according to the Iowa Motor Truck Association. But Gannon said it’s harder to recruit 21-year-olds, which is the age you have to be to drive across state lines. Currently, there is a nationwide push among trucking organizations to have a federal law allowing 18-year-olds to drive heavy trucks across borders. Many in the industry, including Gannon, say they would like to pursue individuals graduating high school. By the time many turn 21, they already are in other jobs or finishing college, thus clogging a potential pipeline of a new generation of drivers. “Our owner, John Smith, has been pushing for 18-year-olds in the industry for 20 years,” Gannon said. “I think we’re finally there. If an 18-year-old can go to war, why can’t they drive a truck? If an 18-year-old went through Kirkwood or our program, there’s no doubt in my mind they would be a safe truck driver.” Kirkwood’s program, for which Brown returned to Iowa, is a four-week program that has been around for almost 40 years. Students in it receive over 200 hours of classroom instruction and a minimum of 60 hours behind the wheel. “It was great and they actually cared,” Brown said. “They don’t leave people behind and they make sure every person is up to speed with the class.” But like the truck driver shortage, Kirkwood has been dealing with its own instructor shortage since the pandemic began. Amy Lasack, executive director of continuing education and training services at Kirkwood, said each class had the capacity to have 12 students at once. But around the time the pandemic began, each class was limited to six students. “It started right before COVID hit,” Lasack said. “We’re hoping we can capitalize on truck driver retirements and they can come work as a part-time instructor.” The classes also are opportunities for trucking companies to recruit. Lasack said in any given month, a dozen or more companies will come in to speak to students. “It’s pretty informal, but they talk about what the industry is like and they talk about recruiting,” Lasack said. “Employers are there at some point almost every day.” Lasack said she thinks if regulations change regarding the age required to drive heavy trucks across state lines, that could help with the recruitment. “For students just graduating high school, the career isn’t an option for them,” she said. “A lot of companies find that silly: You can drive from Cedar Rapids to Sioux City, but not Cedar Rapids to Moline” under the current law.

WASHINGTON — Mixed reaction is rolling in over the White House’s recent announcement about a plan to help the trucking industry. Some in the world of big rigs applaud it. Others hate it. The Biden-Harris Administration’s Truck Action Plan includes four strategies to strengthen America’s trucking workforce. The program will kick off a 90-day apprenticeship program for employers, expedite commercial driver licensing and identify states with CDL hurdles, as well as focus on recruiting, training and retaining drivers from underrepresented communities to jobs that are strong, safe and stable. The announcement is welcomed by industry groups who have been working on solutions to the driver shortage for years. On the other hand, many drivers and owner-operators aren’t as enthusiastic. American Trucking Associations (ATA) Executive Vice President of Advocacy Bill Sullivan said, “We are encouraged that the Biden Administration has not only recognized the importance of adding new and well-trained Americans to the trucking workforce, but has announced a path forward with what we believe will become a robust training opportunity for future commercial truck drivers.” The registered apprenticeships for trucking will allow employers of all sizes and industry segments to provide debt-free paths to a trucking career with high-quality training. The Department of Labor’s Office (DOL) of Apprenticeship will be aggressively working with interested employers to build apprenticeship programs in as little as 48 hours. As part of the effort to reduce barriers to drivers obtaining their CDLs, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced immediate funding of over $30 million to help states expedite CDL testing and issuance. Several states, including Arkansas, are experiencing significant testing delays from a backlog created by insufficient staffing, turnover and increased demand. The ATA estimates the driver shortage to be 80,000 — an all-time high for the industry — and with expected freight growth, the shortage could surpass 160,000 in 2030. The Truck Action Plan is part of the administration’s Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force that launched earlier this year to address tightening bottlenecks in the supply chain. The steps announced in the Trucking Action Plan include both short- and long-term solutions and timelines to begin taking action for the next 30 days, 60 days and 90 days as the country continues to economically recover from the pandemic. “We thank the president and his administration for recognizing the important work of the men and women in the trucking industry. We appreciate any effort to support and expand access to quality driving jobs and address the pandemic-driven delays in obtaining a commercial driver’s license,” said Shannon Newton, president of Arkansas Trucking Association. “We welcome the opportunity to work together in sharing our industry with a new cohort of drivers.” Todd Spencer, president of the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), wasn’t as enthusiastic. “There are some elements in the Plan we support, including further analysis of driver compensation and unpaid detention time,” Spencer said. “However, the plan fails to address excessively high driver turnover rates. Attracting and training new drivers won’t solve the larger problem of retention.” On The Trucker’s social media platform, reactions to the plan were mostly negative. “They’re from the government and they’re here to help,” wrote Rock Bowman on Facebook. “Yeah, right. More like just another way to wash money into the pockets of the apparatchiks. It’s a highly descriptive word worth looking up.” “How about safe parking,” wrote Trevor Kiecker. “A permit to carry in every state for safety reasons healthy food that won’t break the bank and some respect. How about letting us police our selfs and have the the power to do so. I mean I’ll sleep when I’m tired and drive when I can. Instead of this dam eld.” “So a bunch of people that have never drove a truck are going to get together and make things better…,” wrote Dawn Doolittle. “Yup this will work out well!”    

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A new study by the Supply Chain Management Research Center at the University of Arkansas found that the federal electronic logging device (ELD) mandate has not reduced accidents and that its implementation correlates with an increase in unsafe driving incidents. “Surprisingly, the number of accidents for the most-affected carriers — those operators for whom the federal mandate was intended — did not decrease,” said Andrew Balthrop, research associate in the Sam M. Walton College of Business. “In fact, following the implementation of the mandate, accidents among small carriers and independent owner-operators increased, relative to large asset-based carriers.” In December 2017, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) began enforcing a mandate requiring truck drivers to track their working hours with an ELD. Compared to traditional paper logs, such devices made it more difficult for drivers to manipulate records to make it appear they are complying with hours-of-service regulations, when in fact they are not. After a “light enforcement” period, regulators began strictly enforcing the mandate on April 1, 2018. According to a University of Arkansas news release, Balthrop and several colleagues analyzed detailed data from the FMCSA to determine how the mandate affected three critical transportation safety-related outcomes: compliance with reporting hours of service, accident counts and frequency of unsafe driving. Focused on these outcomes, the researchers compared data over three time periods — before the mandate and during the light and strict enforcement periods. They also looked at these outcomes based on company size, ranging from independent owner-operators to carriers with more than 50,000 trucks. The mandate significantly improved driver compliance with reporting hours of service, the researchers found. This was especially true for small carriers and independent owner-operators. Large carriers had already been using electronic logging devices before the mandate and were practically unaffected. For most carriers — that is, all categories other than the carriers with more than 50,000 trucks — the number of accidents actually increased after the federal mandate took effect. Again, this was especially true for independent owner-operators. They experienced an 11.6% increase in accidents, and carriers with two to 20 trucks had a 9% increase. The researchers’ analysis of unsafe driving infractions for different sizes of carriers during the light and strict enforcement periods showed that these also increased compared to infractions before the mandate took effect. This was true for all size categories, but the increases were greater for small and medium-sized carriers who had not been using an electronic logging device before the mandate. “Our results indicate the electronic logging device mandate did not immediately achieve its goal of reducing accidents,” Balthrop said. “Drivers have reacted in ways the FMCSA has not fully anticipated, and these behaviors should be accounted for as the FMCSA revisits their hours-of-service policies.” The electronic logging-device mandate coincided with an increase in unsafe driving and speeding citations among truck drivers, and this likely caused an increase in accidents, Balthrop said. The stricter hours-of-service enforcement seems to have led more drivers to try to compress their routes into the time allotted.  

NEW YORK — Meera Joshi, deputy administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), has accepted a role as one of New York City’s deputy mayors. News broke of Joshi’s move late Monday morning. New York’s mayor elect, Eric Adams, selected Joshi to serve as deputy mayor of operations, according to media outlets in New York. American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear said of Joshi: “(She) has led FMCSA through historic times—as an unprecedented global pandemic, countless natural disasters, a cyberattack on a major domestic pipeline, and widespread workforce shortages challenged the freight economy in ways never before seen. “Throughout her tenure, the trucking industry has found Deputy Administrator Joshi to be a candid, collaborative, and valued partner in government. Her use of data and stakeholder input drove a sound policy process designed to meet real-world needs. Her leadership has helped to ensure our industry could continue to safely serve the American people and meet the demands of the economy during these incredible times.”  

DENVER — The 110-year prison sentence meted out Dec. 13 to the truck driver who killed four people when he lost his brakes on Interstate 70 put a renewed spotlight on Colorado’s mandatory-minimum sentencing laws and on district attorneys’ ability to use such laws to ensure convictions lead to prison time. Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, 26, was sentenced to a prison term twice as long as some Colorado murderers after his convictions triggered provisions in state law that forced District Court Judge Bruce Jones to lay down a minimum 110-year sentence. And there are many who want what they perceive as a miscarriage of justice fixed. Dozens of online trucking groups, along with scores of truckers, have been furiously posting messages in support of a reduced sentence for Aguilera-Mederos. The Direspected Trucker, which has a large following on social media, wrote recently on Twitter: “Truckers!!!! Stop delivery to Colorado immediately!! Until the governor does something about the ridiculous sentence handed down to one of our own we need to boycott Colorado.” Other groups are offering similar messages online. The judge said during the sentencing hearing that he had no discretion to set a lesser prison term, though he would have liked to. One family member of a man who died in the fiery 28-car pileup in Lakewood said he did not want a life sentence for the truck driver. And the day after the sentencing, First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King — who pursued the convictions that led to the 110-year sentence — said in a statement she would “welcome” a reconsideration of the prison term. Aguilera-Mederos’ sentence stretched to more than a century because under Colorado law, first-degree assault and attempted first-degree assault are so-called “crimes of violence” in which prison sentences must run consecutively, and not concurrently, when they spring from the same incident. “This is a grossly excessive sentence,” said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado. “It cries out for the reform of sentencing laws. But I think calls for change also need to be directed at the seldom-criticized but largely unchecked power of prosecutors. They have the power to decide who goes to prison and for how long. Prosecutors decide on the charges to file, and they decide what plea bargains to offer.” King refused to talk to The Denver Post about the case, which was initially charged under her predecessor, Pete Weir, and instead sent statements through a spokesman. “The facts and consequences of Mr. Aguilera-Mederos’ decisions that day were extraordinary enough to support pursuing first-degree assault charges,” she said. Aguilera-Mederos refused to accept any plea offer “other than a traffic ticket,” King said, and the convictions recognize the harm caused to victims of the crash. “My administration contemplated a significantly different outcome in this case, but Mr. Aguilera-Mederos wasn’t interested in pursuing those negotiations,” she said. Aguilera-Mederos’ attorney, James Colgan, would not discuss what sort of plea bargain was considered, except to say that the discussions “were not fruitful.” Silverstein said King’s statement suggests the district attorney’s office overcharged the case to try to pressure Aguilera-Mederos into pleading guilty rather than taking the case to trial. “It’s out of line for the prosecutor to blame the defendant for exercising his constitutional rights,” Silverstein said. George Brauchler, former district attorney for the 18th Judicial District, disagreed. “I have little sympathy for someone who turns down a reasonable plea bargain offer, and then goes to trial and bemoans the fact that the worst thing that could happen to them happened,” he said. Colorado’s mandatory minimums largely were established in the 1990s as a tough-on-crime response to rising crime rates and a perception among conservative politicians that the state’s judges were handing out light sentences, said Stan Garnett, former Boulder County district attorney. There were concerns that sentences for the same crimes varied dramatically depending on the judge and perhaps on the defendant, Brauchler said. The laws give tremendous power to district attorneys, Garnett said. “You can, in the way you charge the case, predetermine what the sentence is going to be, and put an extreme amount of pressure on the defendant to plea,” he said. “It makes it impossible for a judge to fashion a sentence that fits the particular crime and particular defendant.” Brauchler said the laws ensure that perpetrators of violent crime who harm multiple victims are held responsible with prison sentences for each victim, since the terms must run consecutively. “This guy killed four people,” Brauchler said. “How much time are four lives worth?” He added that people convicted of vehicular homicide in Colorado, which carries a recommended sentence of between two and six years in prison, are eligible to be sentenced to probation instead of prison. “If that was the only charge, vehicular homicide, that guy might have walked out of the courtroom,” he said. “There’s no outcome, using those weak charges, that comes even close to justice. That can’t be justice when you kill four people.” A jury in October found Aguilera-Mederos guilty of four counts of vehicular homicide, six counts of first-degree assault, 10 counts of attempted first-degree assault, four counts of careless driving causing death, two counts of vehicular assault and one count of reckless driving. The state’s mandatory-minimum laws have faced criticism in recent years, and some of the state’s minimums have been reduced or removed. State Sen. Bob Gardner, a Colorado Springs Republican who sits on the state’s year-old Sentencing Reform Task Force, said Tuesday that he’s looking into Aguilera-Mederos’ case. “When I saw the story this morning, I thought it was worth making some inquiries of both prosecutors and defense counsel alike as to whether this is an anomaly, whether this is something we ought to deal with and, frankly, to see whether it is something as we’re doing our sentencing reform that could be addressed,” he said. The task force, formed by Gov. Jared Polis last year to review and suggest changes to the state’s sentencing laws, began its work with misdemeanor cases and has not yet considered reforms to felony sentencing, said Maureen Cain, a task force member and director of legislative policy and external communications for the Colorado Public Defender’s Office. That work should start next year. Aguilera-Mederos intends to appeal the jury’s verdict, Colgan said, and is also considering a variety of challenges to the sentence, though those challenges will have to wait until the appeal process concludes. An online petition calling for Polis to commute Aguilera-Mederos’ sentence had more than 1 million signatures Wednesday night. “The law is just so frustrating because it ends up in miscarriages of justice like this,” Colgan said Tuesday. “The law is poorly written.” The state’s mandatory sentencing law allows for the trial judge to reduce the sentence within 91 days of Aguilera-Mederos’ commitment to the Department of Corrections, after the department evaluates Aguilera-Mederos and submits a report to the judge. The judge must find “unusual and extenuating circumstances” to modify the sentence, the law says — a step Jones implied he’d be willing to take. Aguilera-Mederos could also ask the court to reconsider the sentence through other legal avenues, Colgan said. Colgan expects Augilera-Mederos will not be eligible for parole until he is in his 70s or 80s — state law says he must serve 75% of his sentence (that’d be about 82 years) before he can be paroled. That percentage often ends up being closer to 50% of the total sentence once the Department of Corrections applies credits for time served, good time and other measures, Brauchler said. “Nobody on planet Earth can tell you how many days this guy will serve before he is parole-eligible,” Brauchler said. Colgan said the state’s mandatory minimum sentencing laws should be changed to give more discretion to judges. “(If) you don’t allow the judge to put some humanity into the law, it becomes a rubber stamp,” he said, “and everybody gets sucked in.” The Trucker Staff contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is providing $52.5 billion in funding to all 50 states and the District of Columbia under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. According to a news release issued on Dec. 15, the $52.5 billion in apportioned funding for Fiscal Year 2022 represents an increase of more than 20% as compared to Fiscal Year 2021 for Federal-aid Highway Program apportionments. This funding is distributed annually by FHWA for the Federal-aid Highway Program based on a statutory formula contained in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. “We are committed to delivering on the promise of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and putting people to work modernizing our infrastructure and making it safer, more sustainable, and more efficient,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “In implementing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and FHWA believe the Federal-aid Highway Program apportionments, as well as additional formula funding under the Highway Infrastructure Program and discretionary funding to be made available through new and existing program grants, will address long-overdue needs hampering the safety and performance of America’s roads, bridges and highways,” the news release stated. The funding will help reduce the backlog of major repairs for highways and bridges and increase the number of communities that have strategies to reduce traffic deaths and serious injuries. Additional funding to be announced in 2022 will contribute to: Fixing up to 10 of the most economically significant bridges in the nation, and repairing over 15,000 smaller bridges across the country; Reconnecting as many as 20 communities by removing portions of interstates and redesigning rural main streets; and Spurring the creation of a nationwide network of 500,000 EV chargers by 2030, including a special program for smaller and underserved communities. “Providing states with information on their apportioned funds today is an important first step in using the resources provided in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to make transportation systems across the country safer and more resilient,” said Deputy Federal Highway Administrator Stephanie Pollack. “We look forward to working with transportation agencies and the communities they serve to use these resources to build a better America.” Federal-aid Highway Program funds are authorized periodically by Congress in multi-year laws to assist states in providing for construction, reconstruction and improvement of highways and bridges on eligible federal-aid routes and for other special purpose programs and projects. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law establishes or continues FHWA programs and authorizes funding for those programs from the Highway Trust Fund. As the first step, FHWA is distributing these funds through a process known as an apportionment, using a statutory formula to determine the amount available to each state. In addition to the apportionment of funding, FHWA will issue obligation limitation, which allows states to commit a portion of their apportioned funding for the period through Feb. 18, 2022, when the current Continuing Resolution for Federal Fiscal Year 2022 appropriations ends. Obligation limitation represents the ability of a state or other entity to enter into a project using federal funds, with the federal government making a binding promise to pay or reimburse the state or other entity for the Federal share of the project’s eligible costs.