Highway Planning

Environmental and permit reviews for federal-aid highway projects are complex and require coordination from as many as 30 federal, state, and local highway, environmental, and planning agencies, as well as public comment and review. GAO was asked to report on federal and state efforts to streamline environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act and section 404 of the Clean Water Act of 1977, assess whether these efforts will expedite the reviews, and determine the amount of Highway Trust Fund money that is spent for mitigating adverse effects on the environment. GAO found that highway and environmental review agencies have developed processes to streamline the reviews for highway projects that have an impact on wetlands. These processes integrate reviews under the act and section 404, making them concurrent rather than sequential; emphasize early interagency coordination; and include procedures to resolve disputes. When the new processes are fully implemented, agencies expect to expedite all project reviews, which have typically taken over 5 years to complete. However, while the new processes will save time, barriers still exist that could limit the success of the new procedures. Environmental agencies may not have sufficient staff to fully participate in review meetings, which could limit consensus, and the new processes do not clarify how the participating agencies should assess a project's cumulative impact on the environment, a traditional source of delay. As for cost, the Federal Highway Administration has not defined what constitutes an environmental cost and does not routinely track how much states spend to mitigate the highway projects' impact on the environment.

GAO found that: (1) highway and environmental review agencies have streamlined environmental and permitting reviews for highway projects with impacts on wetlands; (2) the new streamlined review processes integrate National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and section 404 reviews, emphasize early interagency coordination, and include procedures to resolve interagency disputes; (3) EPA and FHwA have only completed one project review using the new review processes; (4) although EPA and FHwA expect the new review processes to expedite all project reviews, the integrated processes do not include an evaluation component, environmental review agencies do not have sufficient staff to fully participate in coordination meetings, and the new review processes do not assess a project's cumulative impacts on the environment; (5) FHwA has not defined environmental costs and does not routinely track the amount of funds states spend to mitigate adverse environmental impacts; and (6) none of the 11 states reviewed could provide complete information on their total costs for mitigating adverse environmental impacts.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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