Federal agencies have been put on notice by the White House. Completion of much-needed infrastructure projects nationwide has fallen victim to snail-like movement through the federal permitting processes over the years. As a result, the Administration has announced new initiatives expected to accelerate infrastructure projects by improving the efficiency of those processes.
The announcement of the new initiative was made through a guidance memo issued by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Council on Environmental Quality and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). The initiative gives new directives to federal agencies involved in these processes involving transportation infrastructure projects.The new proposal builds on successes of the last few years, with a goal of modernizing the current permitting process for infrastructure projects and thus increasing investment in American infrastructure – from roads and bridges to ports and waterways. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said every single day of delays on these critical infrastructure projects impacts the nation’s competitiveness and the national economy.
The initiative also updates the Federal Infrastructure Permitting Dashboard, which was launched in 2011 to highlight and track more than 50 high-priority infrastructure projects as they made their way through the permitting and review processes. The dashboard, which has resulted in many of those projects already completing the review process thanks to early collaboration and synchronization of efforts among permitting agencies, will be expanded. Use of the dashboard will be required for major projects that meet a certain set of criteria, including designating specific permitting and review scheduled for projects as well as when projects meet certain milestones. Upgrades to the dashboard Web site are currently under way.
Beginning in October, nearly a dozen federal agencies with key roles in infrastructure project permitting, review and development will begin considering new projects that will be required to post standardized milestone and coordinated schedules within 90 days. They are likely to include major transit projects, capital improvements for airports, ports, dams, energy transmission, broadband Internet networks and other projects that ordinarily would undergo a complex and lengthy federal environmental review and permit process. The Administration expects this expanded use of the dashboard to result in faster decisions on permitting of projects, costs savings and increased coordination among federal agencies involved in those permits. Foxx said the proposal seeks to “improve efficiency, coordination and collaboration, so that federal permitting becomes a sprint rather than a relay race.”
In the past, the permitting and review process for these high-profile infrastructure projects has taken months and sometimes years – resulting in delays of projects that have significant impact on the nation’s transportation system and costing taxpayers millions of dollars. The Administration is so committed to this initiative that even if Congress does not appropriate funds for the dashboard expansion, the OMB and DOT have already made plans to allocate some of their funding toward beginning the enhancements.