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

Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users or SAFETEA LU '/s//eɪ//f//t//i://'//l//u:/ 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, as and .

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. The bill was named after Lu Young, the wife of Representative Don Young. Congress renewed its funding formulas ten times after its expiration date in 2009, until replacing the bill with the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP 21) in 2012.

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. 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. Hastert's ownership interest in the tract was not a public record because the land was held by a blind land trust, Little Rock Trust No. 225. Environmentalists, who opposed the project, celebrated its cancellation. The 'Midnight Rider' reads as follows:

This provision, added to combat attempts at Tribal sovereignty over natural resources, while decried by Native American Rights advocates, received little attention outside of Oklahoma until the Supreme Court ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma.

SAFETEA LU was also the primary source of funding for other modes of surface transportation, including transit. Notably, the bill included funding for the New Starts program, which among other things helped to fund most of the new rail transit systems that opened in the United States during this time period, as well as extensions to existing systems.

The New Freedom program was a new formula grant program authorized in SAFETEA LU to support new public transportation services and public transportation alternatives beyond those required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 ( et. seq.). This program was codified at

The New Freedom Program grew out of the New Freedom Initiative introduced by the Bush administration under Executive Order 13217, "Community Based Alternatives for Individuals with Disabilities," on June 18, 2001. President Bush included funds for the New Freedom Program in the annual budget request to Congress since FY 2003; however, it was not until the enactment of SAFETEA–LU that funding was authorized by Congress. Funding was first appropriated for the transportation provision in Fiscal Year 2006. The program was repealed when the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP 21) bill was adopted in 2012.