The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:

(a) Following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, legislation was enacted to make seismic safety a top transportation priority in this state. In the wake of the Northridge earthquake of 1994, when nine major freeway bridges were destroyed and 11 major highways wee closed, seismic retrofit of the state’s bridges and highways again became the number one priority on the state’s transportation agenda.

(b) In 1996, voters approved Proposition 192, a two billion dollar ($2,000,000,000) bond measure for state highway seismic retrofit. This funding measure includes the costs of retrofitting seven state-owned toll bridges, five in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay area and two in southern California. Replacement costs for the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge were factored in as well.

(c) Subsequent to the adoption of Proposition 192, new cost estimates by the department increase the toll bridge retrofit program from six hundred fifty million dollars ($650,000,000) to two billion six hundred million dollars ($2,600,000,000). To address this increase, the Legislature enacted legislation in 1997, establishing the compromise of a 50/50 funding agreement between the state and local toll payers to finance all state-owned bridges in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay area, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

(d) It is the further intent of the Legislature that the department address the funding deficiency through a combination of financing options. These options may or may not include obtaining a loan under the federal Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-178), a program authorized by the Congress of the United States in 1998 to provided credit assistance for large transportation projects.

(e) Other financing options include revenue bonds and commercial paper should be issued under the authority of the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Financing Bank, the California Transportation Commission, or other, appropriate entity.

(Added by Stats. 2001, Ch. 907, Sec. 5. Effective January 1, 2002.)