I. INTRODUCTION
TEA-21 reflects the commitment of Congress and the Administration to invest in America's infrastructure in a fiscally responsible manner, while increasing safety, providing for a cleaner environment, and expanding opportunity. TEA-21 embodies President Clinton's vision of an integrated transportation system helping to ensure Americans' prosperity and quality of life in the new century. The Committee on Environment and Public Works is to be commended for its leadership role in shaping TEA-21 and the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA).
Secretary Slater has established an agenda for the Department to build transportation systems that are international in reach, intermodal in form, intelligent in character, and inclusive in nature. The various operating administrations within the Department work together and with others, including other federal agencies, state, local, and tribal governments, industry, labor, safety and environmental protection groups, and the public at large to implement TEA-21, consistent with the intent of Congress.
The environmental streamlining provision (Section 1309) of TEA-21 requires the Department of Transportation to develop and implement a coordinated environmental review process for highway and mass transit projects. This provision reflects Congress' reaction to concerns expressed about delays, unnecessary duplication of effort, and added costs associated with the current process for reviewing and approving transportation projects. The chief objective is to focus efforts on better and earlier coordination among federal, state, and local agencies. Congress reinforced this by allowing certain activities associated with streamlining to be eligible for federal aid reimbursement. This aspect of the provision is essential to early coordination. I assure you that we at DOT are listening to the direction provided to us by this Committee. We have heard those representing the transportation industry, environmental organizations, and others who have also testified before you. We are listening carefully to all of the concerns and viewpoints.
Section 1309 gives us new direction from Congress in streamlining the environmental review process. DOT sees Section 1309 as an opportunity to take our earlier process improvements further. We will do so with a focus on shaping environmental streamlining in ways that show measurable progress and demonstrate results. Moving projects through the review and development process faster, without compromising environmental safeguards, is a complex undertaking--one that takes place most effectively at the local level. Some results will come quickly; others more slowly; but they will be built upon work underway and past practices that provide a solid foundation for greater progress. We must also ensure that during the project development process, we adhere to all of the approximately 40 important environmental laws that apply to transportation projects.
Last week, we distributed a compendium of past and current successful programmatic agreements, memoranda of understanding, and partnering efforts to DOT field offices, packaged as "A Successful Practices Tool Kit." A copy was also provided to Committee staff. This information will be accessible via the Internet on our Environmental Streamlining web site. It is just one example of what we have done to encourage the state and regional offices to work with state and local partners to arrive at creative and flexible streamlining solutions sooner rather than later.
Jerry Alb, the Washington State Department of Transportation environmental services director, one of the witnesses at the April 29 hearing, told the Subcommittee about a number of innovative measures. These innovations are engaging environmental agencies and members of the public more fully in creating cost effective and timely approaches for addressing environmental issues relevant to transportation. The USDOT and EPA have been partners in that effort, providing funding, technical assistance and Federal buy-in that has been important to the success to date.
The process followed by the San Diego Association of Governments and Metropolitan Transit Development Board to plan the expansion of the San Diego light rail transit system is an example of an effective process for streamlining transportation projects. Preliminary Engineering (PE) was completed in less than five months. This abbreviated schedule for PE was possible due to the extensive public involvement and interagency coordination and follow-up analyses undertaken during the planning stage.
II. APPROACH TO STREAMLINING
I would like to describe planned DOT efforts to advance streamlining efforts and tell you how what we have done over the past year is shaping the direction we are taking.
In March of this year, Secretary Slater invited his counterparts in other federal agencies to cooperate in a multi-agency effort to develop joint environmental review processes. A federal interagency meeting was convened April 6, 1999, to initiate the development of a streamlined environmental review process. We agreed to establish a national commitment among DOT and the federal resource/environmental agencies to work collaboratively as partners to achieve the goals of TEA-21 through a National Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). We have established working groups among DOT headquarters and field organizations and with other federal agencies that include the Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and the President's Council on Environmental Quality. We began meeting formally in April.
Over the past two months we have agreed upon and finalized the contents of the National Memoranda of Understanding (MOU), which is currently being circulated for agency concurrence. The National MOU establishes a national cooperative framework for state and regional collaborative efforts. Among other things, the agencies agree to identify solutions to reduce project delays by amending rules and policies where needed, defining a national process for conflict resolution, and committing to establish performance measures and benchmarks to evaluate transportation and environmental decision making.
DOT is committed to public participation and keeping our stakeholders informed and involved as we implement environmental streamlining. We have been issuing environmental streamlining status reports on a regular basis. A Federal Register notice announcing the availability of our successful practices tool kit, the status of documents and ongoing activities and information about our streamlining activities will be published shortly. This ongoing information exchange will be facilitated through the Internet, specifically FHWA Office of Planning and Environment's web site: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/index.htm.
We met with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) on April 8, and June 7, 1999, to listen to the concerns of our state partners about streamlining the environmental review process. We have received views on this important issue from other stakeholders as well, including the American Public Transit Association (APTA), the American Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO), and the Coalition to Defend NEPA. We have continued to meet with CEQ, EPA, and the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure cooperation and collaboration on critical issues. Periodic public discussions and meetings open to all stakeholders are also planned.
In order to pursue sound solutions for addressing problem areas, we asked resource agencies and project sponsors to identify opportunities for collaboration and to identify challenges and problems that create the biggest obstacles to efficient project development. Many said that programmatic agreements, regional MOUs, less formal partnering efforts, support of pilot efforts, and training provide excellent opportunities for collaboration. They stated that many problems stem from lack of early involvement and consensus about the scope of the project, lack of trust or good working relationships, lack of understanding of other agencies' missions/processes, poor quality of documents, poorly defined projects, and weak project oversight by both sponsoring and reviewing agencies, primarily at the state, regional and local levels.
Allowing additional costs associated with federal agency compliance to be considered eligible federal aid project expenses will significantly assist project sponsors and their resource agency partners to redress some of these key problems. Draft guidance developed cooperatively with the resource agencies was circulated to the DOT field offices early in May. The guidance includes a discussion of additional opportunities to address staffing constraints, e.g., the use of Intergovernmental Personnel Act agreements. A key component of environmental streamlining is to involve all partners at the Federal, regional, state and local levels early in the planning (pre-scoping) and scoping stages, where environmental and other concerns can more easily be resolved.
On February 15, 1999, FHWA and FTA announced availability of an options paper and made it accessible on DOT's web site. The paper, titled "TEA-21 Planning and Environmental Provisions: Options for Discussion," was based on input received in our outreach efforts. The options paper sets forth a range of possible approaches, rather than giving guidance or stating the Department's preferences. It was intended to stimulate discussion, and indeed it did. To date, we have received over 150 sets of comments primarily from state DOTs, metropolitan planing organizations, environmental and transportation stakeholders, and a few citizens.
On the issue of environmental streamlining, most comments supported renewed efforts to reduce delays and a general endorsement of the types of approaches laid out in the options paper. A number of stakeholders indicated that they wanted to have an opportunity to comment further as we worked with other federal agencies on interagency approaches for implementing environmental streamlining. Several commentors underscored the need to safeguard against attempts to shortchange environmental considerations in the interest of timeliness. A wide range of viewpoints has been reflected in the comments.
This comment process provided valuable insights and perspectives to us and to all who took part in it. Repeatedly, we have been encouraged to avoid prescribing a "one size fits all" requirement for streamlining. We have been cautioned that streamlining initiatives need to be specific to the area and the partnerships that exist in those regions. They need to accommodate change easily and allow for flexibility.
We expect to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding integration of planning, streamlining, and major investment study principles this fall, incorporating much of what we have learned from our partners and customers. We expect that this rulemaking will take some time to complete due to its importance and complexity, the great interest in it, and the wide diversity of views we must be sure to consider. DOT will also continue to vigorously pursue the many viable strategies for environmental streamlining, such as those already described, outside of the rulemaking process.
Our commitment to streamlining can also be seen in our proposal to revise the rules for planning and environmental processes simultaneously. This approach can take advantage of potential efficiencies that can be gained by interconnecting these processes. Project by project studies can tell us a great deal about impacts in a community, but the issues associated with sprawl, air quality, community impacts, and overall process are best addressed at a system level. Our coordinated rulemaking will create a smoother, more fully integrated and efficient transportation decisionmaking process and will also achieve the outcomes intended in Section 1308 regarding Major Investment Studies.
III. PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT
We fully recognize the need for better baseline performance information so that we can gauge progress made in eliminating delays and in being good environmental stewards. The approach suggested by Tim Stowe, of the American Consulting Engineers Council, at the April 29 hearing warrants further investigation. He recommended we use previous successes as a benchmark for future actions, and establish an objective monitoring system on which we can base performance measures. On May 21, 1999, we met with the Council to better understand their proposal. We strongly agree that this is a promising approach. We will also develop a broad set of measures to address the environmental component of the review process.
At the April 29 hearing, Chairman Voinovich expressed interest in measurement of progress in environmental streamlining. We have attempted to define the scope and the magnitude of the problem.
As a first step, we have compiled information on how long it currently takes for a project to go through the process. For example, for projects for which FHWA approved a Record of Decision (ROD) during 1998, the average duration of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process from the notice of intent to prepare an EIS, to the ROD, was approximately four years. Federal transit projects range from 1.5 to 5 years, with an average of 3.5 years. Projects that require an EIS are, of course, the most complex projects--those with significant environmental impacts. The review processes may be shortened to less than three years in some cases, but that depends on the nature of the project, the extent to which there was early collaboration, and agreement upon the purpose and need for the project.
The level of analysis required under NEPA for particular types of actions will also affect how long it will take a project to move through the process. A look at FHWA's program in 1998 shows that 91.5 percent of the projects advanced were categorical exclusions (CEs), 6.1 percent resulted in findings of no significant impact (FONSI), and 2.4 percent were projects requiring full environmental impact statements. The project costs associated with a particular class of action are as follows: 67.3 percent of costs were attributable to projects advanced as CEs; 19.2 percent of funds were spent on FONSI projects, and 13.4 percent of program dollars went toward projects requiring EISs. As you can see, most federally funded transportation activities are categorically excluded from detailed environmental documentation.
However, it is important to note that an important purpose of the environmental review process under NEPA is public disclosure of the impacts and informing decision makers about impacts of proposed federal actions for all projects. In the federal-aid highway and federal transit programs, the states, metropolitan planning organizations and local transit agencies choose the transportation improvements and services for which they seek federal assistance. The environmental review process provides a forum for debate about proposed transportation actions. When there is not local consensus on a solution, the environmental process can be lengthened as public debate on a proposal continues.
As noted at the April 29 hearing by Roy Kienitz of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, projects that navigate the federal approval process fall into two natural categories: first, those on which consensus has been reached locally, and second, those where strong disagreement still exists in the area where the project will be located. There is no reason why the federal review process should be unnecessarily prolonged if there are no major disagreements. These represent the great majority of the projects. But in the second category, the small percentage of projects where profound disagreements over the wisdom of a project have not been resolved, the opponents can use the environmental review process to delay a project that they do not support. Mr. Kienitz suggested that our system allows us to say "not yet," but that it is difficult to say "no."
We fully expect to track our progress in implementing streamlining and follow-through with the agency commitments reflected in the National MOU. Recognizing how critical it is for all of us to live up to our commitment to this effort, especially at the most senior levels, DOT is proposing to convene one or two executive sessions a year that would be facilitated by a national expert and would result in a high level policy/problem solving discussion among members of Congress, DOT, and the federal resource agency appointees (i.e., those who sign the National MOU). These discussions may also include stakeholders such as the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, American Public Transit Association, Environmental Commissioners of the States, National Governors' Association, Surface Transportation Policy Project, American Consulting Engineers Council, American Road and Transportation Builders Association, and others.
The purpose of these discussions is to engage federal agencies and stakeholders at the highest level, to establish a common base of knowledge and understanding of the issues associated with environmental streamlining, the complexities of the NEPA process, and the perspectives of key groups. Most importantly, we believe this is an ideal forum to report to you on aspects such as performance measures and to receive feedback and evaluation of the progress that the agencies are making.
V. CONCLUSION
To summarize, DOT believes that successful implementation of environmental streamlining will need to be based upon a number of principles. First, we need a process that will ensure effective environmental decision making in a timely way. Both transportation and environmental agencies will have to improve their environmental review processes. DOT will provide national leadership on environmental streamlining, and will work with CEQ and headquarters offices of EPA, COE, F&WS;, NPS, NOAA, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and others to obtain commitments to better decision making. We fully expect to track our progress and follow though with the commitments reflected in the national MOU. Tangible progress will evolve locally, and state by state, at different rates, based largely on good working relationships and trust established within states and regions. Guidance on successful practices, pilot projects, and partnering efforts will be encouraged and supported. If used by states, the provision allowing resource agencies' work to be eligible for federal aid reimbursement for the incremental cost of streamlining, can address staffing constraints of federal resource agencies. We will work with other stakeholders to develop performance measures and benchmarks for environmental decision making. Environmental streamlining will take hard work, trust building and successful partnering.
TEA-21 supports communities and states as they choose transportation facilities and services that best meet their priorities, through the metropolitan and statewide transportation planning processes. Communities can choose how to use federal transportation dollars in conjunction with other community efforts to achieve new, more livable patterns of growth. A balanced transportation system is only one of a number of ingredients in community viability. Transportation planning works side by side with the development of decent housing, commercial investment, parks and recreation areas, good schools, and effective public safety to make our localities good places to live, work, and raise families. Over the past year, DOT has worked aggressively to deliver the opportunities available in all of the provisions of TEA-21 through a comprehensive, thoughtful, and deliberative process.
This concludes my testimony, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to answer any questions you, or other members of the Subcommittee, may have.