Some state DOTs already are benefitting from MAP-21. Carol Lee Roalkvam, Washington State Dept. of Transportation policy branch manager, says her agency was one of the first to use MAP-21's categorical exclusion for emergency repairs. Issued in February 2013, WSDOT's final rule allows modifications and improvements to be made on a structure's original design. After the Skagit River bridge collapsed in May after an oversize-load-bearing truck hit a portion of the bridge, WSDOT got an exemption from extensive NEPA review under that MAP-21 regulation. "Honestly, we could have done it through the old categorical-exclusions provisions, but it would have taken extra hoops to go through and change the design," Roalkvam says.
Ohio DOT likes the MAP-21 provision that merges the process for issuing a final environmental impact statement and a record of decision, says Tim Hill, administrator of the department's office of environmental services. ODOT used that provision on Cleveland's $330- million Opportunity Corridor project.
Nick Goldstein, American Road & Transportation Builders Association assistant general counsel and vice president of government and regulatory affairs, says he would like to see more of MAP-21's implementing regulations issued in final form.
"What we need to see is the results," Goldstein says. Those outcomes will help inform lawmakers as they draft the next transportation bill, he adds.
Some in Congress would like to see transportation streamlining go even further in MAP-21's successor, due later this year. But Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a key player in the discussions regarding WRDA and the new surface-transportation bill, is resisting moving too aggressively. She recently told her Republican counterparts on the committee that she did not want to enact a new highway-transit reauthorization bill that equates to a large "environmental rider."
The federal government is pursuing other initiatives. The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) proposed, in 2011, minor changes to NEPA that called for more interagency project coordination. The CEQ modifications would affect all projects requiring a NEPA review, not just those in transportation.
CEQ had a public comment period but has not finalized the changes.
ASCE's Pallasch thinks those steps did not go nearly far enough to be effective, but says the fact the administration "acknowledged that this is a problem—and that additional time does lead to higher costs on some of these projects—that's movement in the right direction."
Pallasch says, "We now have lots of people agreeing that we have this problem, and now we're working toward what is the proper solution."
