Where Scenic America Stands

Scenic America's Position on Reforming the Highway Beautification Act

Adopted by Scenic America's Board of Directors: June 20, 1995
Reaffirmed: November, 1996
Reaffirmed in Current Form: April 21, 2002

Scenic America will work to reform Highway Beautification Act (HBA) to meet its goal of protecting roadside beauty.  Thirty-six years of neglect, billboard-industry-sponsored amendments, and insufficient funding have transformed what was originally hailed as the harbinger of a new conservation movement into a legal and regulatory failure.

The Issue

The Highway Beautification Act was intended to protect rural areas from billboard proliferation and, ultimately, to free rural areas of billboards entirely.  However, a loophole permitting billboards in unzoned commercial or industrial areas led to the billboard industry using such things as unoccupied storage facilities, home offices, and outright sham businesses to justify the construction of massive signs in rural areas.

Furthermore, despite the fact that the vast majority of courts have upheld the constitutionality of compensating billboard companies with 5 - 10 year grace periods before forcing the removal of nonconforming signs, Congress in 1978 amended the HBA to require cash compensation for the removal of billboards along federal highways.  As a result, 29 states have followed suit and most communities find billboard removal far too expensive to attempt.

In 1977, the Federal Highway Administration changed its procedures to permit so-called vegetation management in front of billboards.  As a result, in more than 1,000 locations in more than 20 states annually, billboard operators legally clear cut or "trim" trees or other vegetation on the public right-of-way in order to improve the visibility of their billboards, causing the destruction of tens of thousands of trees each year.

In 1981, federal funding for billboard control under the HBA was eliminated.  As a result, state billboard control programs have suffered.  For example, in 1996, more than 75 percent of all state beautification programs reported operating deficits ranging from $17,000 in New Hampshire to as much as $700,000 in Maryland.  Without a substantial increase in permit fees, the dedicated state beautification officials simply cannot do their jobs.

Since its inception, Scenic America has supported reforming the HBA.  Lady Bird Johnson hoped that the HBA would lead to highways that were both beautiful and functional.  We can still honor her vision by making the HBA live up to its original promise.

Scenic America Supports:

• Amending the HBA to stop new billboard construction along federal aid primary highways;
• Improving the HBA's protection of rural areas by eliminating the unzoned commercial/industrial area loophole;
• Repealing the 1978 compensation amendment to allow states and municipalities to remove billboards by any constitutional means, including amortization;
• Prohibiting tree cutting to improve billboard visibility; and
• Imposing either a road user fee or higher billboard permit fees to ensure that both federal and state highway beautification programs are self-sustaining.

BACK TO TOP