Topic: Health — Health Care Reform
Subject: Transportation and public works
Date: 2008-07-25 00:00:00

National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act of 2008 - Revises the national highway bridge replacement and rehabilitation program to direct the Secretary of Transportation to develop a risk-based priority process under which states shall assign priority for the replacement or rehabilitation of all federal-aid highways bridges, public roads bridges, and Indian reservation and park bridges found to be structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Requires states, as a condition of receiving federal assistance, to develop, and update annually, an approved five-year performance plan for highway bridge inspection and rehabilitation and replacement. Directs the Secretary to: (1) revise annually, as necessary, the data contained in the national bridge inventory; (2) make it more accessible to the public and easier to understand; (3) establish procedures for states to report critical findings of bridge deficiencies and subsequent monitoring and corrective actions; (4) expand the national training program for bridge inspectors to ensure that all bridge inspectors are appropriately trained and certified; (5) revise federal regulations concerning the qualification of state highway bridge inspection personnel to require program managers and team leaders to be licensed professional engineers; (6) establish a two-year pilot grant program to evaluate the effectiveness, accuracy, and reliability of the use of advanced condition assessment inspection processes and technologies to monitor and evaluate the structural health of highway bridges meeting certain criteria; and (7) establish a national highway tunnel inspection program. Revises national bridge inspection standards to provide for annual inspections of structurally deficient highway bridges, including biennial inspections of those bridges that have not been determined to be structurally deficient. Directs the Comptroller General to study and report to the Secretary on: (1) the factors that contribute to construction delays of bridge rehabilitation; and (2) any recommendations for simplifying and expediting the construction of bridges that are to be rehabilitated. Directs the Comptroller General to study and report to specified congressional committees on the effectiveness of the bridge rating system of the Federal Highway Administration, including the use of the terms "structurally deficient" and "functionally obsolete" to describe the condition of highway bridges in the United States. Directs the Secretary of Transportation to study and report to specified congressional committees on: (1) the cost benefits of using carbon fiber composite materials in bridge replacement and rehabilitation projects instead of traditional construction materials; and (2) the risks posed by floods to bridges on Federal-aid highways, bridges on other public roads, bridges on Indian reservations, and park bridges located in a 500-year floodplain. Expresses the sense of Congress that states should prepare bridge corrosion mitigation and prevention plans, containing specified features, for bridge construction, replacement, or rehabilitation projects.