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ARTBA
Applauds Introduction of House
Washington, D.C. [September 26, 2002]—U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) introduced legislation September 25 designed to reduce delays in the planning and approval of federally funded highway and transit improvement projects. "ARTBA applauds Chairman Young for introducing this much needed legislation," said ARTBA President and C.E.O. T. Peter Ruane. "This legislation would help ensure that needed and environmentally-sound transportation improvements are not delayed by bureaucracy, regulatory redundancy or obstructionist behavior." The bill, H.R. 5455, entitled the "Expediting Project Delivery to Improve Transportation and the Environment Act"—or ExPDITE Act—would more clearly define how transportation improvement projects should be reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Under ExPDITE, the review process would be managed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration as "lead agencies." The legislation would also set deadlines for government agency reviews and the filing of lawsuits challenging decisions. The proposed law would set benchmarks for performance and also establish mechanisms to resolve conflicts. Summary of the ExPDITE bill (PDF format 60K). According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, it typically takes from nine to 19 years to plan, gain approval for and construct a new, major federally funded highway project. A recent study by FHWA helps answer why this takes so long—the time required to process environmental documents for large projects has more than doubled over the past two decades. ### Editors
Note: ARTBA, based in Washington, D.C., represents the U.S.
transportation construction industry exclusively in the Nation's Capital.
Its more than 5,000 members come from all sectors of the industry, public
and private. Transportation construction generates more than $200 billion
annually in U.S. Gross Domestic Product and sustains the employment of 2.5
million Americans. ARTBA marks its 100th Anniversary of serving the
transportation construction industry in 2002.
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