This is one of those issues where a claim has been repeated so often it seems true. And yet there's less here than meets the eye. To put a sharper point on what Emil says, there is little evidence that environmental reviews are the reason for project delays. The Congressional Research Service issued its latest report on this just last month, and right there on page 2 is a key finding:

"Despite the focus on the NEPA process, it is unclear whether or how changes to that process

would result in faster highway project delivery. Available evidence regarding potential causes of

project delays associated with environmental compliance is largely anecdotal and specific to

unique, individual projects. Still, that evidence, while limited, points to issues or requirements

apart from NEPA as more common causes of project delays.”

It's worth unpackaging this a bit. First, and this is one of the most annoying things about this debate, is the fact that it is driven by anecdotes. If you've worked at all with Congress or lobbyists on this issue, you've heard horror stories. That's the coin of the realm for those who think they're experts in this field. This one project ran into some strange or bureaucratic hurdles, adding time and dollars to the final tally of costs of delivery.

And then lobbyists usually make an outlandish leap, concluding that this one story in this one locale is evidence enough that the law needs to be changed. Not local law. Not even state law. No, federal law. Say what?

So this is the first thing that is bizarre about this debate. It's about heat more than light. People get angry about one instance of project delay and soar to the conclusion that federal law needs to change. Report after report has been written about this topic, and yet we still traffic in anecdotes rather than statistics. How many projects are built? Out of that, how many go through environmental review? Out of that, how many are subject to some sort of controversy regarding delivery time? Where are those projects? What are possible and actual sources of delay? What are possible remedies, based on that body of facts and analysis?

To be fair, there was a survey done by FHWA of 80 or so large projects that went through environmental impact statements and took an unusual amount of time to complete. That survey found that other factors played bigger roles in expanding the time frame than environmental reviews. That's useful. However, that study is long in the tooth; it's now more than a decade old.

The good news is that Chairman Mica to his credit requested that GAO do a more robust analysis of this issue, and my understanding from talking with the analysts is that it will be done soon. But "soon" means next month, by which time Congress may have made wholesale changes to the law. Talk about ready, fire, aim.

Setting aside the pathetically inadequate amount of analysis of causes and remedies here (and I would suggest that at present a much larger cause of long delivery times is lack of funding which would be a better focus for those who seem obsessed with environmental reviews instead), can and should something be done to improve environmental reviews? I think the answer is yes, and that administrative changes make more sense than legislative ones.

Take highway projects. More than 90 percent of them are categorically excluded from reviews. And only four percent go through a full-blown EIS, an even smaller subset of which are subject to some sort of time-consuming controversy. This and the previous Administration have issued Executive Orders to handle the most high-profile, big-ticket instances of unusually large delivery time frames. This seems sensible and targeted at the problem, rather than risking harmful unintended consequences (and ineffective remedies) by painting with the broad legislative brush. And there may also be rules that should be changed or rescinded, as I found when I commissioned a study of administrative policies and found that New Start projects must go through alternatives analysis not once but twice due to a transit administration regulation; the recommendation was to eliminate that duplicative loop. There may be other rules worth examining, altering or even eliminating.

The last thing I'll say on this topic echoes what Rob said in his post. The title to this week's question poses a false choice, implying that if you are pro-environment you are anti-infrastructure and visa versa. Nonsense. To make this point, in 2003 I worked with environmental activists across the country on a report profiling a dozen road projects that had been substantially improved thanks in part to environmental reviews (pdf here). I would, of course, love to see a more statistical analysis of improvements in outcome due to reviews, but at leat wanted success stories to balance out the horror stories that activists in this space fulminate about. These stories -- including attractively designed highways in Colorado and Montana -- underscore that, as a former Florida DOT ecologist sums up regarding another improved project in that state: “NEPA was criticial to this and other large projects around the country, as it provides accountability for impacts and leads to this sort of mitigation."

Environmentalists ARE infrastructurists, and I look forward to working with others in this field to making the case for boosting smart investments in our transportation system.

The premise that we cannot have good jobs and a clean environment is simply false. The truth is that we can and must transition to a cleaner economy, bolstered by more modern and efficient infrastructure. Doing so ensures we compete effectively against China, Germany and the rest of the world in the 21st century.

Already, Europe and Asia are beating America hands down in deploying advanced transportation technology, such as high-speed rail, transit, and more efficient freight. Growing global markets demand it…and overseas industries are responding.

Meanwhile, we debate how quickly we can strip out protections that will keep us rooted in 20th century technologies that rely on dirty energy.

Ours is an economy that values efficiency — in transportation, manufacturing, energy production and energy use. Ensuring efficiency across these sectors implies the highest and best use of our resources, and has the potential to create millions of good American jobs.

Regulations that protect our air, soil and water are a net benefit to people economically, in addition to improving quality of life and public health. Cost-benefit estimates of major federal regulations from 2000 to 2010 show benefits exceeding costs in the range of $60 to $70 billion per year to include increased productivity, lowered health care costs, and bringing new technologies to market.

In the first half of 2011, employers listed regulations as the cause of 0.2 percent to 0.3 percent of jobs lost as part of mass layoffs — not exactly an example of a “job-killing” agenda. On the other hand, developing and deploying cleaner technologies — and moving people and goods more efficiently — creates jobs in new construction, operations, and advanced manufacturing.

While we debate moving backward and delay action on the transportation bill, other countries are moving full speed ahead. It’s time we fulfill the vision of 21st century transportation that moves Americans and our products more efficiently, deploys the cleaner vehicles the global market demands, and spurs the industries building the assets — here in the United States — of a multi-modal transportation network.

We can have good jobs, modern infrastructure, and a cleaner environment, and to compete against the world, we must.

It appears likely that conference committee on the surface transportation authorization legislation will consider environmental streamlining. Both the Senate- and House-passed bills that are before the conference committee addressed this issue. In that connection, there are several steps that can be taken that would benefit the delivery of transportation projects without reducing appropriate environmental protections or without allowing important and relevant environmental impacts to be ignored. The most important of these is to move toward concurrent, rather than sequential, consideration of environmental issues and the granting of permits, and to introduce the mitigation of environmental impacts into the earliest possible stages of program and project planning. Another important step that would allow projects to proceed more quickly, and would reduce costs, would be to expand the area of categorical exclusions to include improvements or changes within existing transportation rights-of-way.

However, it is important to note that environmental planning and permitting is not the only, and often not the principal, cause of delays in the delivery of transportation projects. Often states or regional authorities do not have sufficient state or local funds to match federal investment in a particular project. Even greater causes of delay are state procurement and contracting rules. Almost half the states still do not allow design-build, and state legal requirements, in connection with design-bid-build, add a great deal of time to the ultimate delivery of the improvement to the public. In my own state of Connecticut, there are statutory requirements, governing the adverstising for planning and engineering design consultants, for the selection of such consultants, and for contracting with them, once selected. Obviously, time is then spent, in designing a facility, before it is even put out to bid. Bidding, reviewing bids, awarding the project, and contracting with the winning bidder all add many more months to the process.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is to be complimented for carrying out so vigourously its "Every Day Counts" program under the leadership of Administrator Mendez. This FHWA program looks at all facets of the design, contracting, and construction process, and seeks to make improvements at every stage. Moreover, new construction technologies should be encouraged and rewarded, so that the construction process, itself, proceeds more quickly and with less impact on the traveling public.

Making improvements to the environmental planning and permitting processes are fine, but we must recognize that, if we want to accelerate the delivery of transportation projects, there are many other legal and procedural issues that must be addressed. Unless we do so, we will be disappointed in the results of the latest "environmental streamlining" initiative.

“Environmental streamlining” is difficult, but Representative DeFazio’s comments provide an easy answer to the question “How can conferees find a happy compromise?” The happiest compromise would be to abandon these unfortunate bills and postpone transportation legislation to a new congress.

Defazio is quoted as saying that he would support restrictions that would result in “fewer cars on that road”. The obvious way to get fewer cars on roads is to impoverish the populace, and the current administration is already working to that end, presumably with the support of Representative DeFazio.

As economic growth is encouraged by higher mobility, a more helpful approach would be to remove travel restrictions that do not demonstrate proven benefits. Streetcars on paved roads — a nineteenth century technology for which most users and local authorities do not wish to pay — are more costly and less productive than modern transit modes, such as high-frequency buses.

People who seek to spend federal funds to encourage streetcar tracks on paved roads should be on other congressional committees.