During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to "require governors and local leaders in our metropolitan areas to make energy conservation a required part of their planning for the expenditure of federal transportation funds.”

Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER, grants, which were created under the economic stimulus bill passed earlier this year, represent a step in this direction.

These grants, provided for under Title XII of the stimulus bill, will make $1.5 billion available through Sept. 30, 2011, for highway, bridge, railway and port projects. They are to be awarded on a competitive basis for projects that are deemed to have "a significant impact on the nation, a metropolitan area or a region." Among those eligible for the grants are state and local governments, transit agencies, port authorities, metropolitan planning organizations and multijurisdictional applicants.

The important point for this promise is that several criteria will play a role in determining which projects are funded. These include the economic stimulus impact, the contribution to longer-term U.S. economic competitiveness, improvements to safety, and "livability" and "sustainability." The Transportation Department defines sustainability as "improving energy efficiency, reducing dependence on oil, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and benefitting the environment."

Such principles will not play a role in the decisions for all federally funded transportation projects, and nothing in the legislation requires governors or local leaders to take energy conservation into account more broadly when spending federal funds. But the use of a preference for energy-conserving projects in determining how $1.5 billion in TIGER grants is spent represents a major step toward fulfilling President Obama's promise. We rate it as In the Works.