Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act

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Nicknames
  
FAST Act

Public law
  
Pub.L. 114–94

Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act

Other short titles
  
Federal Public Transportation Act of 2015 Transportation for Tomorrow Act of 2015 Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety Improvement Act of 2015 Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2015 Track, Railroad, and Infrastructure Network Act Railroad Infrastructure Financing Improvement Act Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act of 2015 Driver Privacy Act of 2015 Safety Through Informed Consumers Act of 2015 Tire Efficiency, Safety, and Registration Act of 2015 Motor Vehicle Safety Whistleblower Act Export-Import Bank Reform and Reauthorization Act of 2015 State Licensing Efficiency Act of 2015 Helping Expand Lending Practices in Rural Communities Act of 2015

Long title
  
An Act to authorize funds for Federal-aid highways, highway safety programs, and transit programs, and for other purposes

Enacted by
  
the 114th United States Congress

The Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act is a funding and authorization bill to govern United States federal surface transportation spending. It was passed by Congress on December 3, 2015, and President Barack Obama signed it on December 4. The vote was 359-65 in the House of Representatives and 83-16 in the United States Senate.

The $305 billion, five-year bill is funded without increasing transportation user fees. (The federal gas tax was last raised in 1993.) Instead, funds were generated through changes to passport rules, Federal Reserve Bank dividends, and privatized tax collection.

Unrelated provisions

  • This law authorizes the Export-Import Bank of the United States through 2019.
  • New crop insurance funding is approved.
  • Emigrant Savings Bank is exempted from certain provisions of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
  • The Act also includes several revisions to federal securities law, including Section 76001 of the Act. This provision creates a new Section 4(a)(7) of the Securities Act of 1933, a new exemption from registration under that act intended to facilitate secondary trading of private company securities among accredited investors. By so doing, Congress and the President hoped to support smaller, nonpublic companies with their capital raising efforts by providing more liquidity for their securities, with reduced regulatory burdens.

    • References

    Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA