House transportation leaders introduced a bipartisan bill Sept. 11 that would limit the environmental review timeline on port dredging and other water infrastructure projects, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said.
“WRRDA 2013 is the most policy- and reform-focused legislation of its kind in the last two decades,” Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), the committee's chairman, said in a statement. “A strong, effective water transportation network is essential to keeping pace with other nations that are improving their own infrastructure networks and gaining ground in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.”
Projects for ports, dredging, canals, levees and other water infrastructure can go through environmental reviews that last as long as 15 years, the committee said. The bill will seek to put a three-year limit on the review process, consolidate duplicative reviews and ultimately reduce costs for the $1.4 trillion in freight that uses water infrastructure in the United States.
“We are literally studying our infrastructure to death,” Shuster said in an earlier video about the bill.
Traditionally, Congress writes bills every two years to authorize the Army Corps of Engineers to complete water resources projects. Lawmakers, however, have not passed a new bill since 2007, choosing to renew that bill multiple times, the committee said.
Republican and Democratic leaders in the transportation committee support the measure, they said.
