Public Transportation Modernization, Improvement, and Service Enhancement Account.

Existing law, the Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, and Port Security Bond Act of 2006, authorizes the issuance of $19.925 billion of general obligation bonds for transportation purposes, including $4 billion for allocation to various public transportation purposes. Of this amount, $3.6 billion is to be deposited in the Public Transportation Modernization, Improvement, and Service Enhancement Account (PTMISEA) for allocation, upon appropriation, to transit operators and other agencies for transit purposes. Existing law specifies the process for allocating available funds in the PTMISEA for those purposes appropriated in the Budget Act of 2008. Existing law makes these provisions inoperative on July 1, 2009, and repeals them on January 1, 2010. This bill would apply these provisions to funds appropriated for these purposes from the PTMISEA by the Budget Act of 2009 and subsequent fiscal years and would make other conforming changes. The bill would require eligible project sponsors to provide the Department of Transportation with project descriptions for each project they plan to fund with PTMISEA funds yet to be appropriated for the duration of the PTMISEA program, and would require the department to transmit that information to the Department of Finance. The bill would authorize a project sponsor to use an allocation in a subsequent fiscal year in order to complete projects that were approved in a previous fiscal year. The bill would authorize a project sponsor, in a particular fiscal year, to loan its allocation to another project sponsor with an identified eligible project under terms and conditions approved by the department. The bill would delete the inoperative and repeal dates, thereby extending the operation of these provisions indefinitely. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.