APTA Urges FTA to Extend Partial Buy America Waiver for Vans, Minivans
9/12/2024
APTA sent a letter to FTA Acting Administrator Veronica Vanterpool Sept. 9 in response to FTA’s review of its Partial Waiver of Buy America Requirements for Vans and Minivans and Request for Comment (Docket No. FTA–2024-0007), published in the Federal Register at 89 FR 68027 on Aug. 22.
APTA said it strongly supports Buy America and applauds the Administration’s continued efforts to ensure the use of American-made materials in FTA-funded projects, noting that these requirements are critical to U.S. job creation, timely project delivery, quality, and building U.S. manufacturing capacity.
But APTA also strongly urged FTA to extend the 2022 Partial Buy America Waiver for vans and minivans that expires Oct. 24 because Buy America-compliant vehicles are not available in the U.S. “We urge FTA to extend the partial, time-limited, general nonavailability Buy America waiver for five years without change,” the letter stated.
The letter noted that vanpools advance key climate, equity, and service goals. Also, more than 100 public transit agencies use vanpools to provide critical access to customers in rural, suburban, and urban communities. In 2022, vanpools provided almost 20 million passenger trips on 763 million passenger miles of service.[1]
Without a waiver of FTA’s Buy America requirements, public transit agencies may not be able to offer these crucial vanpool services. For more than 15 years, transit agencies have been unable to acquire Buy America-compliant, unmodified non-ADA accessible vans and minivans. For this reason, FTA has considered and granted waivers of Buy America requirements for vans and minivans on at least four separate occasions.[2] In each instance, FTA sought public comment, and the overwhelming majority of comments expressed strong support for the proposed waiver because of the nonavailability of Buy-America compliant vehicles. Most recently, FTA issued a Partial Buy America Waiver on Oct. 25, 2022, which expires Oct. 24, 2024.
Additionally, without a waiver, recipients could not procure these vehicles with FTA funds, which may result in such consequences as the operation of vehicles beyond their useful life; procurement of larger Buy America-compliant vehicles that are more expensive and have less desirable access/egress characteristics compared to minivans; or termination of vanpool programs or failure to form new vanpool service, which could have climate change and equity impacts because vanpools provide an important transportation alternative to private passenger vehicles both in large cities and rural areas, and service to the elderly and disabled who do not need an ADA-accessible van.
APTA also encourages public transit agencies and other APTA members to file comments in support of extending the Partial Buy America Waiver for five years without change. File comments at Docket No. FTA-2024-0007 by Sept. 23.
[1] APTA, 2023 Public Transportation Fact Book; FTA, National Transit Database (Accessed September 2024).
[2] See FTA, Notice of Buy America Waiver for Minivans and Minivan Chassis, 75 Fed. Reg. 35123 (June 21, 2010) (2010 Buy America Minivan and Chassis Waiver); FTA, Notice of Buy America Waiver for Minivans, 78 Fed. Reg. 71025 (November 27, 2013) (2013 Buy America Minivan Waiver); FTA, Notice of Buy America Waiver of Domestic Content Requirement for Minivans and Vans, 81 Fed. Reg. 72667 (October 20, 2016) (2016 Buy America Domestic Content Waiver); and FTA, Notice of Partial Buy America Waiver for Vans and Minivans, 87 Fed. Reg. 64534 (October 25, 2022) (2022 Partial Buy America Waiver).