H.R. 3963 — Public Inspectors for Safe Infrastructure Act

This section requires that, for federal-aid highway construction projects (including design-build and two-phase contracts), state transportation departments or local transportation agencies ensure public employees (i.e., federal, state, or local government employees) perform construction inspection functions (i.e., construction engineering, contract administration, on-site quality control inspection, materials testing, and resident engineer duties for project acceptance or rejection). It permits temporary consultant contracts for such functions (not exceeding 12 months from contract award) if adequate public staff is unavailable, and requires agencies using this exception to submit annual reports to the Secretary of Transportation describing the functions and justifying the need, with the reports made publicly available on the Department's website.