Graves leads T&I Committee’s GOP efforts to protect infrastructure projects

U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee Ranking Member Sam Graves (R-MO) led his Republican committee colleagues in urging the Biden administration to halt regulatory actions that could kill infrastructure projects.  

“Although the administration is handing out an unprecedented amount of money for infrastructure, eliminating good regulatory reforms and adding new barriers to builders, job creators, and local communities will make it much harder to build needed infrastructure, move goods and people more efficiently, and emerge from this ongoing supply chain crisis,” Rep. Graves said on Monday. “Actions like these will result in pushing more paper and increased compliance costs rather than putting shovels in the ground.”

Rep. Graves and his GOP committee colleagues sent two separate Nov. 22 letters to Brenda Mallory, chair of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan and Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Michael Conner regarding newly proposed regulatory actions.

Specifically, in their letter to CEQ Chair Mallory, the lawmakers opposed an Oct. 7 CEQ-published notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register titled “National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations Revisions,” which they wrote seeks to “irresponsibly and unreasonably undo critical updates” made to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The lawmakers wrote that NEPA-related delays in infrastructure projects can lead to a tremendous loss of investment and extinguish the labor force when jobs are put on hold or never materialize. They added that they “cannot find any justification for CEQ’s desire to revert to an obsolete, badly drafted rule that can do more environmental harm than good.” 

In conclusion, Rep. Graves and the lawmakers “strongly” urged CEQ to abandon its efforts to change the existing NEPA rule “through this harmful, unreasonable, and misguided proposed rule.”

Among the T&I Committee members who joined Rep. Graves in signing the letter were U.S. Reps. Rodney Davis (R-IL) and Garret Graves (R-LA).

In the second letter, sent to the heads of the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Rep. Graves and U.S. Rep. David Rouzer, ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water, Resources, and Environment, expressed concerns regarding recent reports that the Corps has paused issuance of Section 404 nationwide permits and individual water crossing permits for projects that involve Clean Water Act Section 401 certification.

“The nationwide permit program, in particular, is critical to development of infrastructure across the country and allows the Corps to streamline the permitting process for a wide range of critical infrastructure projects that pose minimal harm to the environment,” the congressmen wrote. “It is imperative that the EPA and the Corps clarify their plans to move this program and its covered infrastructure projects as halting this program would be an immense setback to improving our Nation’s infrastructure.”

Reps. Graves and Rouzer pointed out that the Corps has failed to be transparent about its actions and it’s unclear if the EPA and the Corps intend to pause the permitting until the 2020 Rule is revised, which could be as far in the future as 2023.

“This incredibly long suspension of the program would delay infrastructure project development in this country for years, as project proponents rely on certainty in these permitting programs to plan and invest in critical infrastructure,” the members wrote. “We urge EPA and the Corps to provide a remedy to this unacceptable regulatory gridlock and immediately implement all Section 404 permitting programs to ensure we can continue to advance infrastructure projects across the nation.”