The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) authorized $217 bill. for surface transportation programs. TEA-21 continued the use of the Highway Trust Fund as the mechanism to account for Fed. highway user tax receipts that fund various surface transportation programs. This report discusses: the Treasury Dept.'s process for allocating highway user tax receipts to the Highway Account of the Fund; FHWA's process for estimating motor fuel usage & the contributions to the account that are attributable to highway users in each state; & the impact of these processes on the amount of highway program funds distributed to each state. Charts & tables.

This report provides a historical perspective on contemporary federalism issues in surface transportation policy that are likely to be addressed by Congress during the 111th Congress, including possible devolution of programmatic responsibility to states and proposals to change state maintenance-of-effort requirements and state cost matching requirements.