Highway Beautification Act - Recent Activity

Recent Activity

On August 10, 2005, President George W. Bush signed SAFE-TEA-LU (Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users at a ceremony in Illinois; it is scheduled to expire on September 30, 2009. No amendments to the outdoor advertising control program were offered. This legislation lifted the cap on calculating transit advertising and concession revenue as “local match” funds to qualify for federal funding.

In 2008, Congress approved a technical corrections bill to fix errors in the Highway Bill signed in 2005. Conferees on the corrections bill considered but dropped a non-industry proposal to allow corporate floral logos in the right of way.

In 2006 and 2007, Congress considered amendments on appropriations bills to affirm state authority to allow rebuilding of damaged billboards after hurricane Katrina. In 2006, a House-Senate conference on an Energy and Water Development appropriations bill deleted a storm-damage amendment. In 2007, a similar measure was stripped from an emergency appropriations bill on the Senate floor under a point of order.

In early 2006, FHWA announced a formal “conflict assessment” process on the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. A contract was signed with the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution (ECR), Tucson, AZ, to conduct a nationwide assessment in order for the agency to better understand the nature and complexity of the conflicts that have developed in the wake of the HBA and to determine what paths toward resolution are available.

Seven cities were selected as hosts for stakeholder interviews, focus groups and mini-public “drop-in” meetings. These cities were Sacramento, CA: Cleveland, OH; Austin, TX: Atlanta, GA; Salt Lake City, UT; Kansas City, MO; and Philadelphia, PA. The meetings were scheduled from mid-August to mid-November, 2006.

Through over 100 personal interviews, seven focus groups and public meetings in the seven cities along with over 1,800 comments to the Federal Register, the Assessors gathered unique perspectives about the outdoor advertising control program. The Assessors reached several fundamental conclusions: Conflict about outdoor advertising controls is substantive, organizational and attitudinal Key issues perceived as both important to the stakeholders and having reasonable potential for agreement were:

• The use of new technology
• Abuses of signage in commercial and industrial areas
• Future of nonconforming signs
• Control of vegetation in the right of way around billboards
• Inconsistent regulation and enforcement
• FHWA’s outdoor advertising control organization warrants attention – and changes, if any, should be addressed through a forum that includes state regulators
• A well-structured collaborative process holds promise to address substantive issues. However conditions for policy dialogue must be supported by FHWA leadership and endorsement along with good faith participation by stakeholders. The Assessors recommended selecting a limited number of issues to work on and organize a time period to resolve such issues.
• The final assessment report was published in the Federal Register in February, 2007.
• One of the first outcomes from the assessment was a policy memorandum released by FHWA about new technology. On September 25, 2007, the agency issued a policy memorandum titled: “Information: Guidance on Off-Premise Changeable Message Signs.” This memorandum provided clarification to an earlier 1996 FHWA memorandum concerning changeable message signs and set policy guidance and standards for states to allow off-premise changeable message signs (i.e., digital billboards).