Web posting date: June 27, 2012

Buy America Waiver Request

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) received a Buy America waiver request from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) which included a detailed waiver justification provided by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad Co. (BNSF) for the Vossloh 101-LV concrete rail tie system. The Vossloh 101-LV concrete rail tie system is manufactured in the United States, but contains two components (dowel inserts and SKL-30 tension clamps) not manufactured in the United States. Because the Vossloh 101-LV concrete rail tie system will be used in other FRA-funded projects in other states, FRA also received transmittals of the BNSF waiver justification from the Illinois Department of Transportation, the Texas Department of Transportation, and the California Department of Transportation. In order to provide the public an opportunity to review the waiver request and provide comments, FRA published a Federal Register notice on April 10, 2012. A 15-day public comment period ended on April 25, 2012. FRA received no comments on the proposed waiver request.

For the reasons discussed in the Federal Register notice , FRA has decided to grant this waiver. The waiver is conditioned on BNSF's good faith efforts to find a domestic source for the components and is time limited to two years after the effective date of the waiver or until Vossloh begins manufacturing the components in the United States, whichever occurs first. A public comment period on FRA's decision will end on July 2, 2012, after which the waiver will become fully effective.