Texas Approved to Carry Out Federal NEPA Responsibilities

The Federal Highway Administration this week finalized an agreement with Texas to allow TX-DOT to assume responsibilities for environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to ensure that highway projects in the state comply with environmental law. As part of the project delivery reforms contained in both the SAFETEA-LU transportation authorization legislation, and MAP-21, states are allowed to take on the environmental review responsibilities of the US DOT. California is the only other state to undertake this role so far but if these two states are successful others may follow.  Allowing states to fulfill this federal role is expected to expedite the project approval process by removing a layer of review. In 2005 SAFETEA-LU created a pilot program allowing five states the opportunity take responsibility for some FHWA environmental authority. In 2012, MAP-21 made the program permanent and allowed all states to perform NEPA reviews and broadened the authority to include federal rail and transit projects.