Dive Brief:

• The U.S. Department of Transportation has promulgated a new rule that officials say is going to speed up environmental reviews of many highway and transit projects and get them underway faster.
• The rules encourage groups sponsoring a project to design it with minimal environmental impacts and cuts the review time under the National Environmental Protection Act if the projects are within existing rights of way used for transportation or they involve less than $5 million in federal money.
• Peter Rogoff, head of the Federal Transit Administration, said the rule issued by his agency and the Federal Highway Transportation Administration could take up to one year off the existing review process.

Dive Insight:

The administration was required to come up with the revised, expedited review process as part of the MAP-21 legislation. The focus appears to be a rule that acknowledges that one environmental review process does not fit all projects.