Transportation Sec. Sean Duffy brings first such department-wide reform to his agency in nearly four decades
The Department of Transportation is taking action to expedite permitting for infrastructure projects nationwide, minimize delays, and clear the backlog of projects awaiting federal approval, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
The agency has historically had some of slowest permitting timelines across the federal government. According to government data, the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Aviation Administration each take more than seven years to complete reviews while the Federal Railroad Administration and Federal Transit Administration each take more than five years to approve projects.
At the same time, the average age of America’s bridges is 47 years, meaning a bulk of the nation’s bridges have already reached or are nearing their typical 50-year lifespan, making quick permitting for replacement or repair projects even more important.
As part of the announcement Monday, the Transportation Department will begin setting hard deadlines for project approvals, creating page limits for environmental review documents, and issuing more categorical exclusions that enable the agency to expedite environmental reviews for certain projects. And the agency said it will also narrow the overall amount of projects that must undergo environmental permitting.
The administration said Monday that its actions are “landmark revisions” to the Transportation Department’s permitting procedures that represent the first department-wide reform of its kind in nearly four decades.
It’s all part of the Trump administration’s broader vision to speed the development of infrastructure and energy projects, which it says are vital for economic growth, but have been inhibited by burdensome and duplicative regulations—Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy lamented last month that “it takes too long to build in America.”
But the announcement will be just the tip of the iceberg if the administration intends to unwind the layers of environmental permitting regulations the Biden administration spent years crafting. Diane Katz, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, wrote that the Biden-era permitting regulations would inflate the cost of federal projects, encourage judicial activism, and politicize reviews.
“For too long, unelected Washington bureaucrats have weaponized environmental reviews to create endless delays and block projects. No more,” Duffy said in a statement. “These changes will help usher in a golden age of transportation for the American people.”
Duffy added that his agency’s reforms make it possible to deliver roads, bridges, and other critical infrastructure projects “faster and more affordably.”
Overall, federal agencies take two to three years on average to complete environmental reviews.
In addition to road, bridge, aviation, and railroad projects, the Transportation Department also has jurisdiction to permit certain energy projects including deepwater natural gas export terminals, which could benefit from Monday’s announcement.