Opinion ID: 1822350
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Federal Highway Beautification Act

Text: Federal law is focused on the regulation, not the prohibition, of billboards. While the purpose of the FHBA is to protect the public investment in such highways, to promote the safety and recreational value of public travel, and to preserve natural beauty, the mechanism chosen by Congress was not to directly control the erection of billboards, but to provide incentives to the states by conditioning the payment of ten percent of a state's share of federal-aid highway funds on that state's exercise of its powers to effectively control the erection of billboards. 23 U.S.C. § 131(a), (b) (2000). A state is deemed to have exercised effective control so long as it restricts the erection of billboards to adjacent areas that are zoned industrial or commercial under [the] authority of State law. Id. § 131(d). Policies adopted by the Federal Highway Administration, pursuant to the FHBA, provide that an adjacent area is considered to have been zoned commercial and industrial if it is within a district that is most appropriate for commerce, industry, or trade, regardless of how labeled. 23 C.F.R. § 750.703(a) (2003). I conclude from this that the federal government is not concerned with the individual actions of municipalities allowing or denying the erection of billboards, but only with the systems implemented by states to regulate the erection of billboards. Further, although a state regulatory system could lawfully be more restrictive than that specified by federal law, the federal law makes it clear that a state will not forfeit federal-aid highway funds by allowing billboards in zoning districts that are appropriate for commerce, industry or trade. Finally, the federal law instructs that states are not to focus on the zoning labels used to describe a district, but upon its appropriate use for commercial, industrial or trade purposes. Specifically, the policies of the Federal Highway Administration support the view that the use of the PF zoning label does not determine whether a municipal golf course satisfies the federal criteria for the erection of bill-boards. Indeed, MNDOT's grant of the permit to the Lost Spur Golf Course demonstrates that the PF label is not fatal.