23 U.S.C. § 144 — National bridge and tunnel inventory and inspection standards

(a) Findings and Declarations. Congress found that bridges have gotten better since 1998, but they still need ongoing upkeep to stay safe and keep goods and people moving. Congress declared that the country should inventory and inspect bridges and tunnels, use data and risk analysis to guide repair spending, use performance-based management systems, hold people accountable for results, connect rural areas through smart investment, and let fish and other animals pass safely where needed. (b) National Bridge and Tunnel Inventories. The Secretary, working with states and other federal agencies, must: list every highway bridge (including ones owned by tribes or the federal government) that crosses water, land barriers, other roads, or railroads; list every tunnel on public roads; sort bridges by how safe and important they are, including their role in emergency evacuation and moving freight and passengers; use that sorting to set a priority order for maintenance, replacement, or repair; figure out the cost to replace or repair each bridge rated in poor condition; and decide whether repairs should also let fish and land animals move safely. (c) General Bridge Authority. Normally, the General Bridge Act of 1946 applies to any bridge replaced under this law. Exception: two older permit laws do not apply to a bridge built, rebuilt, or replaced under this title if the bridge crosses water that is not used, and could not reasonably be used, to carry interstate or foreign trade, and the water is either not affected by tides, or if it is tidal, is used only by small recreational boats under 21 feet long. (d) Inventory Updates and Reports. The Secretary must update the bridge and tunnel inventories every year and send a report on them to the House Transportation Committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Within two years of MAP-21 becoming law, states and federal agencies had to start reporting detailed inspection data for every National Highway System bridge. The Secretary must give states and agencies guidance on doing this while still respecting each state's own inspection schedule. The Secretary must also study whether it would help to require this same detailed data for bridges not on the National Highway System, and report the study's results to the same two congressional committees. (e) Bridges Without Taxing Powers. An agency that cannot collect taxes, and that runs a public transit system paid for by tolls, can still qualify for bridge funding under this title. But it cannot get more money than it has already spent on that transit system's operating and capital costs. Before approving any money, the Secretary must confirm the agency does not have enough of its own savings or expected income to pay for the bridge work itself. Non-federal money the agency already spent to make the bridge earthquake-safe can count toward the local share it must contribute for any later federal earthquake-safety funding. (f) Replacement of Destroyed Bridges and Ferry Boat Service. A state may use certain highway funds to build a bridge that replaces: a low-water crossing, no matter how long it is; a bridge destroyed before January 1, 1965; a ferry that was running on January 1, 1984; or a road bridge made useless by an Army Corps of Engineers flood-control project, if the Corps did not rebuild it. The federal government pays 80 percent of the cost of that construction. (g) Historic Bridges. A "historic bridge" is one listed on, or able to be listed on, the National Register of Historic Places. The Secretary must work with states to encourage keeping, fixing up, and finding new uses for historic bridges. Each state must inventory its bridges to find which ones are historically significant. Reasonable costs to protect a historic bridge's historic features can be paid back as project costs, but only if the bridge is strong and safe enough for its planned use for the rest of its life. If a historic bridge is no longer used by cars and trucks, its reimbursable costs cannot be more than what it would cost to tear it down. Before a state tears down a historic bridge as part of a replacement project, it must first offer to give the bridge away to a state, local government, or private group, as long as that group agrees to keep the bridge and its historic features, and to take on all future legal and money responsibility for it, which can include protecting the state from lawsuits. Costs the state spends helping someone take over a historic bridge this way can be paid back too, capped at the cost of demolition. A bridge saved this way cannot also get other funding under this title. (h) National Bridge and Tunnel Inspection Standards. The Secretary must create and keep up uniform standards for inspecting and rating every highway bridge and tunnel for safety and usefulness. At a minimum, these standards must: spell out exactly how states, federal agencies, and tribal governments must do inspections; set the longest time allowed between inspections; set the qualifications required for inspectors; require states, agencies, and tribes to keep and share, on request, written inspection reports, notes on any action taken, and up-to-date inventory data; and set up a national certification process for bridge and tunnel inspectors. The Secretary must also, working with states and interested experts, set up ways to check whether states are following the standards and correctly calculating bridge load ratings, and set up ways for states to report serious safety problems and what they did about them. The Secretary must review every state's compliance each year. If a state is found out of compliance, the Secretary must issue a report on the problems by December 31 of that year, and give the state a chance to fix it, either through a corrective action plan or by fixing the problem within 45 days. If the state still has not fixed things by the following August 1, the Secretary must, starting October 1, make the state spend part of its highway funds on fixing the noncompliance; the state figures out how much based on what is needed, but the Secretary must approve the amount. Within three years of MAP-21, the Secretary had to update the inspection standards covering inspector training and qualifications and how often inspections happen, and had to consider a risk-based approach to deciding inspection frequency. (i) Training Program for Bridge and Tunnel Inspectors. The Secretary, working with state transportation departments, must run a training program for people who inspect bridges and tunnels, and must update it over time as techniques improve. The first update after the 2021 transportation law had to add training on checking whether fish and land animals can pass safely and on restoring habitat. (j) Bundling of Bridge Projects. The goal here is to save time and money by letting states combine several similar bridge projects into one project. An "eligible entity" is anyone allowed to carry out a bridge project under section 119 or 133. Such an entity may bundle two or more similar bridge projects if they qualify under section 119 or 133, are listed as a bundled project in the area's or state's transportation improvement program, and are given to one contractor under one design or construction contract. A bundle like this can be treated as a single project for planning purposes. Bundled projects must share the same funding category and the same federal cost-share percentage. (k) Availability of Funds. To carry out this section: the Secretary may use funds made available under sections 104(a) and 503; a state may use funds apportioned under sections 104(b)(1) and 104(b)(2); an Indian tribe may use funds made available under section 202; and a federal agency may use funds made available under section 503.