Title 23 › CHAPTER 1 — FEDERAL-AID HIGHWAYS › § 117
Creates a federal grant program to pay for large freight and highway projects that matter to the nation or a region. The program’s goals are to make moving people and goods safer, faster, and more reliable; to boost the economy and U.S. competitiveness; to cut congestion and bottlenecks; to link different freight modes; to strengthen infrastructure and protect the environment; to support roads important for energy security; and to handle growth. The U.S. Transportation Secretary may award competitive grants to States, groups of States, metropolitan planning organizations for areas over 200,000 people, local governments, special districts and port authorities, tribes, multistate corridor groups, and Federal land agencies that apply with a State. Grants can pay for planning, design, environmental review, construction, land, mitigation, equipment, and related work. Most grants must be at least $25,000,000. A project normally must have costs of at least $100,000,000 or meet a lower threshold tied to State apportionments (30 percent for single-State projects or 50 percent for multistate projects). There is a set of eligible project types, including highway freight on the National Highway Freight Network, National Highway System projects (including adding Interstate capacity), freight rail and intermodal projects, port and waterway work that links to the highway network, grade separations, wildlife crossings, and border-crossing improvements. The Secretary must reserve at least 15 percent of funds each year for smaller projects; those small grants must be at least $5,000,000 and not less than 30 percent of the small-project funds must go to rural areas. Separate from that, at least 25 percent of all grant funds each year must go to projects in rural areas (rural means outside an urbanized area of more than 200,000 people). The Federal share of a project normally may not exceed 60 percent, except small projects get 80 percent. The Secretary may keep up to 2 percent of program funds for application review work. Projects must show national or regional economic, mobility, or safety benefits, be cost effective, meet preliminary engineering, have stable non‑Federal funding and contingency amounts, and be expected to start construction within 18 months after funds are obligated. The Secretary must notify Congress at least 60 days before making a grant and cannot fund a project if Congress disapproves in that period. Non‑selected applicants must get written notice within 60 days of a selection and may request a debrief within 30 days; the debrief must be given within 60 days of the request. The law also creates a State Incentives Pilot with a $150,000,000 yearly reservation, limits the pilot federal share to 50 percent, and sets yearly appropriations of $1,000,000,000 for FY2022, $1,100,000,000 for FY2023, $1,200,000,000 for FY2024, $1,300,000,000 for FY2025, and $1,400,000,000 for FY2026.
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Highways, Source: USLM XML via OLRC
Legislative History
Reference
Citation
23 U.S.C. § 117
Title 23, Highways
Last Updated
Sep 22, 2026
Release point: 119-110