Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users

The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (Pub.L. 109–59; SAFETEA-LU) was a funding and authorization bill that governed United States federal surface transportation spending. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 10, 2005, and expired on September 30, 2009.

The $244.1 billion measure contained a host of provisions and earmarks intended to improve and maintain the surface transportation infrastructure in the United States, including the interstate highway system, transit systems around the country, bicycling and pedestrian facilities, and freight rail operations.

Congress renewed its funding formulas ten times after its expiration date, until replacing the bill with Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act in 2012.

The bill was named after Lu Young, the wife of Representative Don Young.

In 2006 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, championed a $207-million earmark inserted in the omnibus highway bill for the Prairie Parkway, a proposed expressway running through his district. The Sunlight Foundation accused Hastert of failing to disclose that the construction of the highway would benefit a land investment that Hastert and his wife made in nearby land in 2004 and 2005. Hastert took an unusually active role advancing the bill, even though it was opposed by a majority of area residents and by the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The law garnered a large amount of bipartisan support, though support was not unanimous, particularly among those who believed it to be laden with too much pork barrel spending. Early versions of the bill budgeted over $300 billion, but President Bush promised to veto any surface transportation bill costing more than $256 billion. Eventually a compromise of $284 billion was reached, and signed into law by the President. When the speaker became frustrated by negotiations with White House staff, Hastert began working on the bill directly with President Bush. After passage the President even traveled to Hastert’s district for the law’s signing ceremony before thousands of workers in a Caterpillar Inc. factory.

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