Federal Highway Administration January 16, 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) requires DOT and FHWA to develop public-private partnership (P3) transaction model contracts for the most popular type of P3s for transportation projects. Based on public input favoring an educational, rather than prescriptive contract model, FHWA is publishing a series of guides describing terms and conditions typically adopted in P3 concession agreements. The publication and deployment of these model contracts is important to supporting the Administration's Build America Investment Initiative. As part of this Initiative, the U.S. Department of Transportation is committed to providing technical assistance to help project sponsors consider project financing options, including P3s. To address the most popular types of P3s, FHWA is producing separate guides for the two most common agreements for concessionaire compensation: User tolls and availability payments. The Toll Concessions Guide (Guide) is being published in two parts. The first part, addressing the highest profile (core) provisions, comprises chapters 1 through 8 of the Guide. On September 10, 2014, at 79 FR 53825, FHWA published a Final Core Toll Concessions Model Contract Guide (``Core Guide'') incorporating public comments received in response to the Draft Core Guide published February 6, 2014. The second part, described herein as ``the Draft Addendum,'' addresses additional substantive provisions that are proposed to comprise chapters 9 through 28 of the Guide. It addresses a range of additional topics, such as construction performance security, insurance, lenders' rights and direct agreements, performance standards and non-compliance points, consumer protections, government approvals and permits, and a number of other topics described further below. With this notice, FHWA publishes the Draft Addendum so that the general public and interested stakeholders may provide comments. The Draft Addendum can be found on the Docket (FHWA-2014-0006) and at the following link: https://www.fhwa.gov/ipd/pdfs/p3/ model_p3_toll_concessions_addendum.pdf. This model contract guide has been prepared solely for informational purposes and should not be construed as a statement of DOT or FHWA policy. The FHWA values public input in the development of the model contract guides, and seeks continuing input. All documents in this series are available at the same docket (FHWA-2014-0006).