Passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 designated $8 billion for the development of a high-speed intercity passenger rail system. The Federal Railroad Administration named Florida one of ten high speed rail corridors potentially eligible for the federal funding. The HSRA met on February 26, 2009, to begin planning their application for these funds. Due to the passage of time, potential legal issues, and new federal funding criteria rendering the earlier bids from 2003 inapplicable, the decision was made in May 2009 that a new bidding process would be necessary. A first round application was submitted in August 2009 for $30 million to conduct a two-year environmental study on the Orlando-Miami route. In October 2009, the authority submitted an application during the second round for the entire Tampa - Orlando - Miami corridor, broken into two components: Orlando-Tampa and Orlando-Miami. Connect Us, a political action committee, was launched on August 18, 2009, to rally public support for these applications.