Latest news with #NationalHistoricPreservationAct
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion - We need to simplify environmental permits to boost their impact
In the clash between the competing pro-petroleum and pro-climate visions of the economy, few policy issues are as misunderstood and complicated as our nation's environmental permitting systems. The number of permitting actions is enormous. During a single presidential term, approximately 1.5 million permitting, informal review, and consultation processes are overseen under just five environmental and historic preservation laws. Many of these cover minor actions that would never have required permits in the 1970s and 1980s. Consider the National Environmental Policy Act. Roughly 400,000 'categorical exclusions' are processed under this law each presidential term, compared to about 1,000 major reviews called 'environmental impact statements.' An exclusion isn't an absence of review; instead, it is akin to a simpler kind of permit. There are categorical exclusions to cover summer picnics by federal agencies, a 90- to 120-day exclusion process for a loan to replace powerlines across North Dakota wheat fields, or exclusions for every Agriculture Department grant to a farmer. Most exclusions involve minimal staff hours and are completed in weeks to months, making it hard to object to any one review. But collectively, their issuance requires hundreds of staff and millions of days of project delays. Over four years, about a million similar, small permit processes will run their course under the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and especially the National Historic Preservation Act. Yet almost all the attention on reform has focused on the small number of 'big' permits. For example, President Biden's permitting team reported cutting 25 percent off the average processing time for those 1,000 major environmental impact statements, compared to the first Trump administration, whose permits were also faster than the administration of Obama. On big permits, Democratic administrations have favored adding staff to write and review documents. That strategy works, but it can be hard to maintain, particularly if agency budgets get cut. And most of the laborious steps to finish an impact statement remained unchanged, with some becoming more expansive. Republicans tend to favor the wholesale elimination of major permits — at least for fossil fuel infrastructure — and cutting staff. That pattern showed up across President Trump's executive orders. If maintained by courts and Congress, those orders would eliminate some National Environmental Policy Act regulations and skip most requirements to protect clean water and endangered wildlife by calling permit issuance an emergency. Democrats are increasingly flirting with exemptions for different categories of projects — wind and solar instead of oil and gas, for example. A problem with taking away major permits is that they often have very significant impacts on things that communities in both red and blue states value. Permit reviews can produce much less harmful outcomes. Addressing the millions of smaller permits is a missed opportunity with fewer downsides. First, we should entirely eliminate thousands of small permits by defining the actions they cover as not 'major federal actions' — the original, intended scope of the National Environmental Policy Act. For instance, a provision in proposed permitting legislation redefines all grants and loans this way. This change would benefit thousands of towns, cities, nonprofits and businesses that receive federal funding and wouldn't affect public input because few categorical exclusions ever involve the public in the first place. Second, we can improve remaining small permit processes by expanding reforms that have proven successful in dramatically accelerating timelines and reducing workload while still avoiding or compensating for harms caused by projects. For example, government agencies are increasingly using technology-based 'dashboards' that allow anyone to track the status of an application and exactly which staff are reviewing it. Virginia has achieved the greatest success with this technology, alongside procedural reforms, delivering an expected 70 percent reduction in application review times for 200,000 state decisions over four years. The Department of Energy is piloting AI technologies that could allow more than 80 percent of small permit documents to be machine written. Self-permitting under general permits is another promising reform. Projects that agree to use what are effectively common-sense best practices to avoid harm are automatically approved if they submit the paperwork that proves those practices will be followed. General permits exist under clean water and wildlife laws, although the paperwork required to get these automatic approvals could still be significantly reduced. Offsets — which are opportunities to compensate for unavoidable environmental impacts — also help. Having a supply of pre-approved beneficial offsets has sped up some Clean Water Act permitting by 50 percent. We can't build everything Americans want without having any environmental effect, and having offsets available allows unavoidable harm to be balanced with benefits to similar environmental features nearby. The most important change needed to improve or eliminate millions of small procedures is a culture shift among both permitting agencies and permit applicants. Many government staff are dedicated public servants, but some view institutional caution as a mission and environmental permitting as a battleground instead of an opportunity to problem-solve with constituents. On the other side, many applicants blame agencies when they themselves have submitted flawed or incomplete applications, proposed unreasonable projects, or rejected the idea of regulatory oversight, failing to respect the reality that most Americans want to unlock growth while also stewarding the environment. Making a million small processes more agile, responsive and effective is a key step toward a government that strikes these balances, and that serves the needs of all Americans. Timothy Male is the executive director of the nonprofit Environmental Policy Innovation Center. Dave Owen is an environmental law expert at UC Law San Francisco, specializing in water, land use and administrative law. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
We need to simplify environmental permits to boost their impact
In the clash between the competing pro-petroleum and pro-climate visions of the economy, few policy issues are as misunderstood and complicated as our nation's environmental permitting systems. The number of permitting actions is enormous. During a single presidential term, approximately 1.5 million permitting, informal review, and consultation processes are overseen under just five environmental and historic preservation laws. Many of these cover minor actions that would never have required permits in the 1970s and 1980s. Consider the National Environmental Policy Act. Roughly 400,000 'categorical exclusions' are processed under this law each presidential term, compared to about 1,000 major reviews called 'environmental impact statements.' An exclusion isn't an absence of review; instead, it is akin to a simpler kind of permit. There are categorical exclusions to cover summer picnics by federal agencies, a 90- to 120-day exclusion process for a loan to replace powerlines across North Dakota wheat fields, or exclusions for every Agriculture Department grant to a farmer. Most exclusions involve minimal staff hours and are completed in weeks to months, making it hard to object to any one review. But collectively, their issuance requires hundreds of staff and millions of days of project delays. Over four years, about a million similar, small permit processes will run their course under the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and especially the National Historic Preservation Act. Yet almost all the attention on reform has focused on the small number of 'big' permits. For example, President Biden's permitting team reported cutting 25 percent off the average processing time for those 1,000 major environmental impact statements, compared to the first Trump administration, whose permits were also faster than the administration of Obama. On big permits, Democratic administrations have favored adding staff to write and review documents. That strategy works, but it can be hard to maintain, particularly if agency budgets get cut. And most of the laborious steps to finish an impact statement remained unchanged, with some becoming more expansive. Republicans tend to favor the wholesale elimination of major permits — at least for fossil fuel infrastructure — and cutting staff. That pattern showed up across President Trump's executive orders. If maintained by courts and Congress, those orders would eliminate some National Environmental Policy Act regulations and skip most requirements to protect clean water and endangered wildlife by calling permit issuance an emergency. Democrats are increasingly flirting with exemptions for different categories of projects — wind and solar instead of oil and gas, for example. A problem with taking away major permits is that they often have very significant impacts on things that communities in both red and blue states value. Permit reviews can produce much less harmful outcomes. Addressing the millions of smaller permits is a missed opportunity with fewer downsides. First, we should entirely eliminate thousands of small permits by defining the actions they cover as not 'major federal actions' — the original, intended scope of the National Environmental Policy Act. For instance, a provision in proposed permitting legislation redefines all grants and loans this way. This change would benefit thousands of towns, cities, nonprofits and businesses that receive federal funding and wouldn't affect public input because few categorical exclusions ever involve the public in the first place. Second, we can improve remaining small permit processes by expanding reforms that have proven successful in dramatically accelerating timelines and reducing workload while still avoiding or compensating for harms caused by projects. For example, government agencies are increasingly using technology-based 'dashboards' that allow anyone to track the status of an application and exactly which staff are reviewing it. Virginia has achieved the greatest success with this technology, alongside procedural reforms, delivering an expected 70 percent reduction in application review times for 200,000 state decisions over four years. The Department of Energy is piloting AI technologies that could allow more than 80 percent of small permit documents to be machine written. Self-permitting under general permits is another promising reform. Projects that agree to use what are effectively common-sense best practices to avoid harm are automatically approved if they submit the paperwork that proves those practices will be followed. General permits exist under clean water and wildlife laws, although the paperwork required to get these automatic approvals could still be significantly reduced. Offsets — which are opportunities to compensate for unavoidable environmental impacts — also help. Having a supply of pre-approved beneficial offsets has sped up some Clean Water Act permitting by 50 percent. We can't build everything Americans want without having any environmental effect, and having offsets available allows unavoidable harm to be balanced with benefits to similar environmental features nearby. The most important change needed to improve or eliminate millions of small procedures is a culture shift among both permitting agencies and permit applicants. Many government staff are dedicated public servants, but some view institutional caution as a mission and environmental permitting as a battleground instead of an opportunity to problem-solve with constituents. On the other side, many applicants blame agencies when they themselves have submitted flawed or incomplete applications, proposed unreasonable projects, or rejected the idea of regulatory oversight, failing to respect the reality that most Americans want to unlock growth while also stewarding the environment. Making a million small processes more agile, responsive and effective is a key step toward a government that strikes these balances, and that serves the needs of all Americans. Timothy Male is the executive director of the nonprofit Environmental Policy Innovation Center. Dave Owen is an environmental law expert at UC Law San Francisco, specializing in water, land use and administrative law.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
I-5 bridge replacement program unveils plan to minimize impact on historic sites
PORTLAND, Ore. () — The Interstate Bridge Replacement Program is asking for help in ensuring the project reduces its impact on historic sites in the Portland and Vancouver areas. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act requires agencies to assess whether federally-funded projects could harm cultural resources and, if so, determine how to minimize that harm. As a result, the team behind ongoing efforts to replace the Interstate 5 Bridge is on its Draft Programmatic Agreement. Residents appeal Oaks Amusement Park's plan to install 135-foot Drop Tower ride The proposed agreement reveals how leaders would address the program's potential 'adverse effects' to historic places, such as physical damage, removal from their original location or alterations to the features that make the sites historic. IBRP has identified more than 10 places that could face adverse effects of construction. According to the program's , the Harbor Shops along 11915 N Center Ave. and Jantzen Beach Water Tank at N Center St and N Jantzen Ave. are the two Portland sites that could be completely demolished under the program. In Washington, around one-third of an acre of the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site and nearly one-quarter of an acre of the Vancouver Barracks Historic District would be demolished. Program leaders have selected different 'treatment measures' for the identified areas, but some — like the Northbound lanes of the I-5 bridge — will have their historic materials salvaged for future use. 'Preference will be given first to the public ownership and reuse of these materials within public spaces or structures in or adjacent to the [Area of Potential Effect] and second, to public ownership and reuse of these materials within public spaces or structures outside the APE,' the drafted Programmatic Agreement reads. Portland Fleet Week to bring extended bridge lifts next week The program will also consider offering materials to the general public if public agencies don't express interest in using them. Community members have until June 8 to weigh in on the PA proposal. They can submit their feedback through the online form or by emailing culturalresources@ Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Georgia preservation society says federal cuts hurt efforts to preserve historic sites
The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation has worked to keep the state's historic structures in good shape and protected from the damages of time since 1973. However, the organization said Thursday that federal funding cuts, including funds allocated to them that are being withheld due to changes in Washington, are putting their mission at risk. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] 'Recent developments at the federal level of government present a direct threat to historic preservation and require us all, as advocates for historic places, to speak up,' the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation said in a statement. The organization said the 'critical federal funding' that keeps their historic preservation efforts going in Georgia has not yet been distributed for the 2025 fiscal year. TRENDING STORIES: Historic railway museum in Duluth named to Places in Peril list Historic Georgia sites named to 2025 'Places in Peril' list Historic McAfee House sold in Cobb County for $1, plans to move home for preservation proceed Groups tour historic theatres across north Georgia Georgia Trust sells 103-year-old Gwinnett Co. library to City of Norcross for preservation Additionally, and in their words 'even more troubling,' was that the funding is almost 'completely eliminated' in the 2026 fiscal budget in Washington. That's because the latest federal budget would almost completely remove the Historic Preservation Fund, a federal program that assists state-level and local preservation work. The organization said it puts Georgia's historic sites in jeopardy. 'The administration's failure to release the 2025 Historic Preservation Fund and its proposal to nearly eliminate this critical funding in 2026 will have catastrophic consequences for historic preservation efforts nationwide,' W. Wright Mitchell, president of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, said. Mitchell said the funds being withheld also meant that state historic preservation offices could end up closing down, adding that 'the damage from these actions could take decades to repair.' The Historic Preservation Fund was first created in 1966 through the National Historic Preservation Act. The legislation was signed into law by former President Lyndon B. Johnson. The fund is what is used to administer the National Register of Historic Places, issue Historic Tax Credits for reinvestment and, among other functions, provide technical assistance, reviews and approval of federal tax credit projects. The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation said this type of funding helps to incentivize private investment in historic communities across the state, as well as lead to investments that create jobs, both directly and indirectly. 'The continued withholding of appropriated funds and the proposed elimination of future funding will be detrimental to all historic preservation efforts in the state,' the organization said. Channel 2 Action News has reached out to the White House for comment and are waiting for their response. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Agreement between Connecticut and the Trump administration aims to speed up infrastructure projects
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — The U.S. Department of Transportation and the state of Connecticut announced a new agreement on Thursday that aims to cut red tape and speed up transportation infrastructure projects. The department said the agreement will allow the state to review projects more rapidly, cutting up to six weeks off the schedules of major efforts like the ones at the Gold Star Bridge and along the New Haven Line of Metro-North Railroad. Walmart raising prices due to tariff costs According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, the agreement between the Trump administration and the state is the first of its kind in the country. It comes as state transportation officials from around the country are convening in Hartford for a meeting of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). Under the agreement, Connecticut will be delegated authority to expedite infrastructure project reviews under the National Historic Preservation Act, a federal law. 'We deeply appreciate the support from the U.S. Department of Transportation in making it a reality,' Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto, the head of the Connecticut Department of Transportation and the national president of AASHTO, said in a written statement issued by the federal Transportation Department. 'By streamlining environmental reviews and cutting government red tape, we can more efficiently advance projects and ultimately reduce costs.' U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday's announcement is part of a broader effort by his department and the entire Trump administration to slash regulations and encourage more construction around the country. 'Thanks to President Trump, America is building again,' Duffy said. 'We've slashed costly red tape and prevented unending environmental reviews to build the big, beautiful infrastructure projects that will propel America forward for generations.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
