Statewide and nonmetropolitan transportation planning

(a) Long-Range statewide transportation plan Section 135(f) of title 23, United States Code, is amended— (1) by redesignating paragraph (9) as paragraph (10); and (2) by inserting after paragraph (8) the following: (9) Project selection transparency and accountability Projects included in the adopted long-range statewide transportation plan shall be selected through a publicly available transparent process that includes use of criteria that directly support factors in subsection (d), the national transportation goals under section 150(b), and applicable State transportation goals. The criteria shall be used to publicly categorize the highest performing projects.. (b) Statewide transportation improvement plan Section 135(g)(5)(A) of title 23, United States Code is amended by adding after the period at the end the following: Projects included in the transportation improvement program shall come from the highest performing category of projects identified in the transportation plan under subsection (f)(9). If a lower-categorized project is included in the priority project list, a public description shall be included to explain why the lower-categorized project is included before a higher-categorized project, including geographic balance and projects in economically distressed areas..