Press Releases

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Ranking Member Sam Graves (R-MO) signaled his support for modernizing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in order to more efficiently carry out reviews of proposed transportation and infrastructure projects, without compromising environmental protections.

Graves officially submitted comments to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which has proposed updates to the more than 40-year old NEPA regulations and recently solicited public comments on the proposed changes.

“The current NEPA regulations were put in place decades ago to help protect the environment, and while our infrastructure needs, technology, economy, and society have all significantly changed in countless ways since then, NEPA has not,” said Graves.  “As a result, projects that would otherwise benefit our infrastructure, safety, and in some cases, the environment itself are often delayed or stopped in their tracks.  I commend the Trump Administration for finally proposing to bring our NEPA regulations into the 21^st century.”

In his letter to CEQ Chairman Mary Neumayr, Graves noted that the roughly $400 billion in annual U.S. infrastructure investment is indicative of the volume of projects that must undergo the NEPA process.  Those NEPA reviews take an average of four-and-a-half years, but often take significantly longer than that.  Graves cited one transit project that was delayed 14 years due to NEPA-related issues.  These delays in turn increase project costs and reduce the amount of resources available to direct towards other needed infrastructure improvements.

Graves voiced his support for CEQ’s updates, which would establish more practical NEPA review timelines and reasonable, flexible limits to the size of environmental documents; emphasize early coordination with stakeholders and federal agencies; and eliminate vague, outdated sections of the regulations to make them easier to comply with.

Click here to read the letter in its entirety.