ARTBA addresses wetlands permissions

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) is offering the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) advice on reducing unnecessary regulatory red-tape on transportation projects through improving the wetlands permissions process. ARTBA has submitted comments to the Corps in response to a government-wide regulatory review initiated by President Obama in 2011. This advice from ARTBA details specific recommendations to make wetlands permitting more efficient. ARTBA is working on ways to reduce u
April 19, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) is offering the US Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) advice on reducing unnecessary regulatory red-tape on transportation projects through improving the wetlands permissions process. ARTBA has submitted comments to the Corps in response to a government-wide regulatory review initiated by President Obama in 2011. This advice from ARTBA details specific recommendations to make wetlands permitting more efficient. ARTBA is working on ways to reduce unnecessary delays in the transportation review and approval process. Currently, it can take anywhere from nine to 19 years for a project to go from planning to completion. ARTBA stressed the need to make the wetlands permitting process less complicated, without sacrificing environmental protections. It has asked the Corps to place strict time limits on permitting decisions, allowing planners to know exactly when a decision would be reached on a project and plan accordingly. ARTBA has suggested that no permits should be required when projects do not have an ecological effect on wetlands, and regulations should not be mandated when there is no practical need. In addition ARTBA also suggests that the US 1293 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be removed from permission decisions. Protection of sensitive areas is assured though through ARTBA’s plan as both US Congress and the courts have given the Corps the sole responsibility for wetlands permissions. This policy would reduce bureaucracy as there is no need for two agencies to carry out a job that can be handled by one. ARTBA’s recent comments represent the fourth agency-wide regulatory review the association has participated in since early 2011. The association also offered detailed comments to the 2364 US Department of Transportation, EPA, and Small Business Administration

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Improve highway barriers to cope with higher speed
    February 24, 2012
    The UK association Britpave, the British In-situ Concrete Paving Association group, is keen to ensure that the country’s major highways will be able to cope with proposed speed limit increases. According to Britpave much of the UK motorway central reservation barriers may not be fit-for-purpose if the speed limit is increased from112-128km/h (70-80mph) as proposed recently.
    Read More
  • Road transport must evolve in line with users’ needs
    April 12, 2012
    At its annual plenary meeting held on 25 May 2010, during the 16th IRF World Meeting in Lisbon, the European Road Federation (ERF) elected a new President in the person of Jacobo Díaz Pineda. Mr. Díaz Pineda has been the Director General of the Spanish Road Association (AEC) since September 2006, and is also President of the Ibero-American Road Institute (IVIA). We took advantage of his presence in Lisbon to ask him a few questions about his new responsibilities:
    Read More
  • Workzone safety protects workforce and drivers
    February 15, 2012
    Highway construction work zones are dangerous places, and anything that can improve safety is welcomed as Patrick Smith reports. The safe and efficient flow of traffic through work zones is a major concern to transportation officials, industry, the public, businesses, and commercial motor carriers. This is the view of the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), which has developed the Highway Work Zone Safety Program to reduce the fatalities and injurious crashes in work zones, and to enhance traffic oper
    Read More
  • EAPA’s 10th Symposium: sustainability and communication issues
    July 19, 2017
    Sustainability and the highways sector’s image issue were two major themes at the 10th symposium of the European Asphalt Paving Association in Paris. Margo Cole reports. Sustainability was explicit or implicit in many presentations during EAPA’s biennial symposium for the paving supply chain. The industry feels that sustainability is its home territory, thanks to an already good – and getting even better - record of recycling of materials. But do buyers and users of roads realise that the design and contrac
    Read More

Highlighted Content