Federal Highway Administration November 2023 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The FHWA, on behalf of Caltrans, is issuing this notice to announce actions taken by Caltrans that are final. The actions relate to a proposed project, to connect State Route (SR) 99 to Interstate 5 (I-5) in an east-west alignment, in unincorporated Sacramento County and a portion of the City of Elk Grove. Those actions grant licenses, permits, and approvals for the project.

The FHWA has forwarded the information collection request described in this notice to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for approval of a new (periodic) information collection. We published a Federal Register Notice with a 60-day public comment period on this information collection on May 26, 2023. We are required to publish this notice in the Federal Register by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.

This final notice announces the availability of a revised Stewardship and Oversight (S&O) Agreement template. The S&O Agreement defines the roles and responsibilities of FHWA and each State department of transportation (State DOT) with respect to project approvals and related responsibilities under title 23, United States Code (U.S.C.), and title 23, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), and documents methods that will be used for Federal-aid Highway Program (FAHP) oversight activities. This template will be used by each of the 52 FHWA Division Offices and their respective State DOTs to develop and execute a new S&O Agreement within 1 year of the date this notice is published in the Federal Register.

On February 21, 2023, FHWA established a Build America, Buy America (BABA) implementation plan by publishing a temporary public interest waiver of Buy America requirements for steel, iron, manufactured products, and construction materials in electric vehicle (EV) chargers. This short-term, temporary waiver was structured to enable EV charger acquisition and installation to immediately proceed while also ensuring the application of Buy America to EV chargers by the phasing out of the waiver over time. While promulgating the final waiver, FHWA announced that it would conduct biannual RFIs to receive information on the status of the EV charger industry. Requests for comment include, but are not limited to, the number of chargers recently produced by EV charger manufacturers, projections on chargers expected to be produced, and the number of EV chargers recently purchased by recipients of Federal financial assistance and projected to be purchased by recipients of Federal financial assistance in the near future.