Obama Announces Steps to Speed Process for Construction of Infrastructure Projects

This story appears in the May 27 print edition of Transport Topics.

President Obama signed a memorandum to speed up the permitting process for major infrastructure projects.

He said in a May 17 speech in Baltimore that he ordered federal agencies to identify inefficiencies and streamline the process.

“Today, I’m directing agencies across the government to do what it takes to cut timelines for breaking ground on major infrastructure projects in half,” Obama said at the headquarters of Ellicott Dredges, which makes equipment for dredging waterways. “And what that will mean is that construction workers get back on the jobs faster, it means more money getting back into local economies and it means more demand for outstanding dredging equipment that is made right here in Baltimore.”

The president’s initiative — part of his bid to put people back to work and grow the middle class — builds on a March 2012 executive order to examine federal permitting for infrastructure. He created a committee, representing various federal agencies, for the reviews.

The May 17 order instructs that committee to identify the policies and regulations that impede faster permitting, and then to identify how those could change.

“I want to put people back to work improving our roads, our bridges, our airports, our ports,” Obama said at the Baltimore event.

In addition to the streamlining efforts, the president proposed in April a budget that would provide a one-time boost of $27 billion for highways and bridges, part of a $50 billion package of immediate infrastructure spending he has requested, which he said would help spur job growth.

At the Baltimore event he criticized congressional Republicans, who he blamed for the problems in funding infrastructure improvements.

“We’ve had a little difficulty getting our Republican friends to work with us to find a steady funding source for these projects that everybody knows needs to happen. But, in fairness, one of the problems we’ve had in the past is that sometimes it takes too long to get projects off the ground,” he said. “There are all these permits and red tape and planning, and this and that. And some of it’s important to do, but we could do it faster.”

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association was happy to see efforts to bring infrastructure projects to fruition faster.

“We are fans of speeding up the approval process, and there’s a couple components that he suggests in his memo that we’ve long advocated for,” spokeswoman Beth McGinn said.

Specifically, American Road & Transportation Builders Association has proposed initiatives to encourage federal agencies to work together to find the best practices for permitting efficiency and for reducing duplicative paperwork among agencies’ permit applications, she said.

“We think these are steps in the right direction,” McGinn said.

MAP-21, last year’s major transportation funding law, includes additional permit streamlining measures that complement Obama’s actions, McGinn said. Those include agency coordination during the review process, authorizing federal agencies to set deadlines for permit review and cutting down the environmental review process timeline.

“We’re going to closely track the administration’s progress, both in this area and during the implementation of MAP-21,” she said.

But Darrin Roth, director of highway operations for American Trucking Associations, found Obama’s May 17 action to be overly general. “There are no specific changes,” Roth said. “They’re basically asking all these departments to come up with a plan for streamlining.”

The changes are not likely to have much of an effect beyond the streamlining provisions of MAP-21, Roth said.

Nonetheless, ATA supports efforts to shorten and streamline the permitting process. “The longer a project takes, the more cost is involved. And obviously the benefits derived from those projects is delayed when the project itself is delayed,” Roth said.

“We are very supportive of streamlining efforts that get projects completed more quickly,” he added.