49 U.S.C. § 70103 — National Multimodal Freight Network

(a) In General. The Assistant Secretary for Multimodal Freight must set up a National Multimodal Freight Network, to: help states direct resources toward better freight-movement performance on the Network; inform freight transportation planning; help prioritize federal investment; and assess and support federal investments toward the national multimodal freight policy goals in section 70101(b) and the national highway freight program goals in section 167 of title 23. (b) Designation of National Multimodal Freight Network. (1) In General. After getting input from stakeholders — including freight system users, transportation providers, metropolitan planning organizations, local governments, ports, airports, railroads, and states — through a public process to identify critical freight facilities and corridors, and after giving notice and a chance to comment on a draft, the Assistant Secretary must designate the Network with the goals of improving network and intermodal connections, and using measurable data — including origins, destinations, and supply-chain links — to judge how significant a freight movement is. (2) Factors. In designating or redesignating the Network, the Assistant Secretary must weigh: where freight starts and ends, within, to, and from the U.S.; freight's volume, value, tonnage, and strategic importance; access to border crossings, airports, seaports, and pipelines; economic factors, including trade balance; access to manufacturing, farming, or natural resource areas; access to energy exploration, development, and production areas; connections that improve intermodal links; choke points and other things causing major congestion, delay, or poor connections; effects on all freight transportation modes, including shared infrastructure; facilities and corridors that a multi-state group, state, state freight committee, or metropolitan planning organization has flagged as critically important, using national or local data; major distribution centers, inland intermodal facilities, and first- and last-mile facilities; and how significant the goods movement is, including global and domestic supply chains. (3) Considerations. In designating or redesignating the Network, the Assistant Secretary must: use measurable data, as much as practical, to judge how significant goods movement is — including origins, destinations, and supply-chain links; weigh the factors in paragraph (2) and any economic changes affecting freight demand; and let states propose their own additional designations, as paragraph (4) describes. (4) State Input. Each state that proposes extra Network designations must consider nominations from metropolitan planning organizations and state freight advisory committees within the state, and from owners and operators of port, rail, pipeline, and airport facilities, and must make sure its added designations match the state's transportation improvement program or freight plan. As part of this, a state may designate a critical rural freight facility or corridor if it is a rural principal arterial road; gives access to energy exploration, development, or production areas; gives access to a grain elevator, farm facility, mine, forestry facility, or intermodal facility; connects to an international port of entry; gives access to a major air, rail, water, or other freight facility in the state; or the state has decided it is vital to moving freight efficiently for the state's economy. A state can propose extra designations totaling no more than 30 percent of the total mileage the Under Secretary designated in that state, and the Under Secretary decides how to apply that 30 percent limit across the Network's parts. A state must send the Under Secretary a list of its proposed extra designations, plus a certification that it met the state-input requirements and that its added designations fit the designation factors. The Secretary will only accept a state's added designations if the Secretary decides they meet the requirements. (c) Redesignation of National Multimodal Freight Network. No later than 5 years after the first designation, and every 5 years after that, the Assistant Secretary must redesignate the National Multimodal Freight Network, using the same designation factors.