In a congressional hearing in mid January on resuming highway earmarks, Texas DOT’s Executive Director James Bass noted that TXDOT, despite a concerted effort by its staff and consultants, has received only 1.5% of total USDOT discretionary grants made to date through executive earmarking programs like TIGER and FASTLANE. That is far less than the 9.25% share of that funding it would have received under the current apportionments formula (which is still less than Texas’s proportional contribution to the Highway Trust Fund).”

In his testimony Bass recommends ways that USDOT could improve its discretionary grant-making processes. He also suggested ways Congress could curtail the growth of such executive earmarks and bring back some form of more disciplined congressional earmarking.