49 U.S.C. § 116 — National Surface Transportation and Innovative Finance Bureau

(a) Establishment — The Secretary of Transportation must create a National Surface Transportation and Innovative Finance Bureau inside the Department. (b) Purposes — The Bureau exists to: (1) give advice and share best practices and funding opportunities with entities eligible for the programs named in (d)(1); (2) run the application process for those programs, following subsection (d); (3) promote good innovative-financing practices, following subsection (e); (4) cut delays and uncertainty in environmental review and permitting, following subsection (f); and (5) cut costs and risk to taxpayers in how projects are delivered and procured, following subsection (g). (c) Executive Director — (1) Appointment — The Bureau is led by an Executive Director, hired competitively by the Secretary with the President's approval. (2) Duties — The Executive Director must: (A) report to the Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy; (B) manage and oversee the Bureau's daily work, decisions, operations, and staff; (C) support the Council on Credit and Finance created under section 117; and (D) do any other duties the Secretary assigns. (d) Administration of Certain Application Processes — (1) In general — The Bureau runs the applications for: (A) the infrastructure-finance programs under chapter 6 of title 23; (B) the railroad rehabilitation and improvement financing program under sections 22401–22403; (C) allocations under section 142(m) of the Internal Revenue Code; and (D) the Rural and Tribal Assistance Pilot Program. (2) Congressional notification — The Executive Director must make sure Congress gets the notifications each of these programs legally requires. (3) Reports — The Executive Director must make sure each program's legally required reports get filed. (4) Coordination — The Executive Director must coordinate with the right officials elsewhere in the Department while running these applications. (5) Streamlining approval processes — Within 1 year of this section's enactment, the Executive Director must send Congress a report that: (A) evaluates how well the application processes work; (B) identifies ways — administrative or legislative — to make them more efficient without weakening federal oversight; and (C) explains how the Executive Director will carry out the administrative fixes that don't need a new law. (6) Procedures and transparency — (A) The Executive Director must: (i) set procedures for evaluating applications and using the Council on Credit and Finance's advice; (ii) set procedures for handling late applications and telling applicants and the public about accept/reject decisions; and (iii) document major decisions with a memo or similar record explaining the reasoning. (B) The Comptroller General must review whether the Executive Director followed these procedures, may recommend improvements, and — within 3 years of enactment — must report the results, findings, and recommendations to Congress. (e) Innovative Financing Best Practices — (1) In general — The Bureau must work with the Department's modal administrations, eligible entities, and outside interests to build and promote best practices for innovative financing and public-private partnerships. (2) Activities — It does this by: (A) making federal credit-assistance programs easier for eligible recipients to use; (B) advising eligible entities on combining public and private funding; (C) sharing case studies and best practices between interested entities; and (D) developing and tracking (i) standard state public-private-partnership practices — including reliable assumptions for analyzing deals, handling unsolicited bids, non-compete policies, and other key contract terms; (ii) standard contracts for the most common types of transportation public-private partnerships; and (iii) analytical tools, including a "value for money" analysis, to help entities pick the right project-delivery model. (3) Transparency — The Bureau must: (A) keep public-private-partnership projects transparent by (i) requiring the project's sponsor to do a value-for-money or similar analysis before deciding to use a public-private partnership; (ii) requiring that analysis and other key contract terms to be made public at the right time; (iii) requiring, within 3 years after the project is finished, a review of whether the private partner is meeting its contract; and (iv) publishing a summary of total federal assistance given to the project; and (B) write guidance for all this that accounts for differences in state and local partnership laws. (4) Support to project sponsors — On request, the Bureau must give eligible entities technical help with proposed public-private-partnership agreements, including help with the value-for-money analysis. (f) Environmental Review and Permitting — (1) In general — The Bureau must take steps, consistent with the Department's goals, to speed up delivery of projects under the programs in (d)(1). (2) Activities — It does this by: (A) coordinating efforts to make environmental review and permitting more efficient; (B) training federal staff on policy changes and new project-delivery approaches; and (C) tracking metrics for permit decisions made under the National Environmental Policy Act. (3) Support to project sponsors — On request, the Bureau — working with the relevant modal administrations — must give technical help on complying with the National Environmental Policy Act and relevant federal environmental permits. (g) Project Procurement — (1) In general — The Bureau must promote good procurement practices for projects funded under (d)(1) by developing procurement benchmarks, to keep federal money accountable over a project's life. (2) Procurement benchmarks — As much as practical, these benchmarks must: (A) set maximum acceptable cost increases and delivery delays; (B) set uniform ways for states to measure cost and schedule changes over a project's life; and (C) be tailored to different procurement types, like design-bid-build, design-build, and public-private partnerships. (3) Data collection — The Bureau must: (A) collect data tied to these benchmarks, including project-specific data; and (B) publish a report on that data on the Department's website. (h) Elimination and Consolidation of Duplicative Offices — (1) Elimination of offices — The Secretary may shut down a Department office if it duplicates the Bureau's purpose and closing it won't hurt the Department's other legal obligations. (2) Consolidation of offices and office functions — The Secretary may fold an office or its functions into the Bureau if they support the Bureau's purpose. (3) Staffing and budgetary resources — (A) The Secretary must make sure the Bureau has enough staff and funding. (B) The Secretary may move a position from a closed or consolidated office into the Bureau, if needed for the Bureau's work. (C) If a position is moved, the Secretary must make sure that move doesn't hurt the original office's other legal duties. (D) The Secretary may move (i) funds from a closed or consolidated office, or (ii) funds allocated for processing applications, into the Bureau — and any of that money can later be moved back to its original account. (4) Notification — Within 90 days of enactment, and every 90 days after, the Secretary must tell Congress: (A) which offices were closed and why; (B) which offices or functions were consolidated and why; (C) what staffing/budget actions were taken and why; and (D) what further legislative action might be needed. (i) Savings Provisions — Nothing in this section: (1) changes any law or regulation about the programs in (d)(1); (2) removes another agency's or office's existing responsibilities for those programs; or (3) affects any application for those programs that was already pending when this section became law. (j) Definitions — (1) "Bureau" means the National Surface Transportation and Innovative Finance Bureau. (2) "Department" means the Department of Transportation. (3) "Eligible entity" means an applicant getting financial or credit assistance under one of the programs in (d)(1). (4) "Executive Director" means the Bureau's Executive Director. (5) "Multimodal project" means a project involving more than one modal administration or secretarial office. (6) "Project" means a highway, public-transportation capital, freight or passenger rail, or multimodal project.