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Highway and Transit Projects: Better Data Needed to Assess Changes in the Duration of Environmental Reviews

GAO-18-536 Published: Jul 19, 2018. Publicly Released: Jul 19, 2018.
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Fast Facts

Since 2005, Congress has passed statutory provisions to help speed up the environmental review process for highway and transit projects. 3 federal agencies (the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Fish and Wildlife Service) are often called on to review these projects.

We looked at the time it takes to complete these environmental reviews. Agency officials told us that these provisions have helped make the review process faster, but we found that they lack reliable data and tracking systems to know for sure. We recommended that they develop better tracking systems and improve data quality.

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Highlights

What GAO Found

Federally funded highway and transit projects must be analyzed for their potential environmental effects, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, and may be subject to other environmental protection laws, including the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. These laws may require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to issue permit decisions and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to conduct consultations before a project can proceed. These three agencies are referred to as “resource agencies” for this report. The three most recent transportation reauthorization acts include provisions that are intended to streamline various aspects of the environmental review process; 18 of these provisions could potentially affect time frames for the environmental permitting and consulting processes for highway and transit projects.

While officials GAO interviewed at resource agencies and state departments of transportation (state DOT) noted that some actions called for by the 18 statutory provisions have helped streamline the consultation and permitting processes for highway and transit projects, GAO found that a lack of reliable agency data regarding permitting and consulting time frames hinders a quantitative analysis of the provisions' impact. Officials said, for example, that a provision that allows federal liaison positions at resource agencies to focus solely on processing applications for state DOT projects has helped avoid delays in permit and consultation reviews. However, none of the three resource agencies could provide enough reliable data to analyze changes in the durations of consultations and permit reviews over time for any of the provisions. Further, GAO identified limitations, such as negative or missing values, and inconsistent data entry practices for FWS and NMFS data. FWS and NMFS have limited controls, such as electronic safeguards and other data-entry procedures, to ensure the accuracy and reliability of their data on the duration of consultations. Left unaddressed, these data quality issues may impair the agencies' ability to accurately determine whether they are meeting their 135-day statutory and regulatory deadlines to complete consultations and provide biological opinions, and could affect their ability to provide accurate data on time frames for efforts of the Office of Management and Budget to track agencies' performance in conducting environmental reviews. While FWS and NMFS officials stated that the agencies plan to improve their tracking systems, the agencies do not have documented plans or time frames for the improvements and it is unclear whether the efforts will include internal controls to improve data reliability.

Some federal resource agency and state DOT officials GAO interviewed identified additional actions that have been used to streamline the consultation and permitting processes to avoid delays in agency reviews. For example, 16 of the 23 resource agency and state DOT officials said that field office staff provided training to state DOT staff about the information field offices required for permit or consultation applications. Resource agency and state DOT officials also identified electronic systems with environmental data and for submitting documents as streamlining actions that have been helpful.

Why GAO Did This Study

Since 2005, the federal government has enacted various statutes aimed at accelerating the environmental review process for highway and transit projects. In addition, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act may require three federal agencies—the Corps, FWS, and NMFS—to issue permits or perform consultations before a project can proceed.

GAO is required by statute to assess the extent to which statutory provisions have accelerated and improved environmental permitting and consulting processes for highway and transit projects. This report examines, among other things: 1) the impact of streamlining provisions on consulting and permitting time frames, and (2) additional actions used by federal resource agencies to streamline their reviews. GAO analyzed permitting and consulting data from the 3 federal agencies and interviewed officials from the 3 agencies, 16 agency field offices, and 7 state DOTs for their perspectives on the effect of streamlining provisions and other efforts. GAO selected these offices to include a range of locations and those with a greater number of permits and consultations, among other factors.

Recommendations

GAO is making two recommendations, one to FWS and one to NMFS, to develop plans and time frames for improving their tracking systems and to develop internal controls to improve data reliability.

The Departments of Commerce and Interior concurred with our recommendations.

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
United States Fish and Wildlife Service The Principal Deputy Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service should direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to develop plans and time frames for improving its new consultation tracking system and develop appropriate internal controls, such as electronic safeguards and other data-entry procedures, to ensure accurate data on the time taken for consultations. (Recommendation 1)
Closed – Implemented
Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act directs federal agencies to consult with the Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) when an action they authorize, fund or carry out, such as a highway or transit project, could affect listed species or their critical habitat. In 2018, GAO identified limitations, such as incorrect or missing data, and inconsistent data entry practices-limitations which would limit future analysis of trends in the duration of consultations. These limitations could also hinder analyses of the extent to which the agency is meeting statutory and regulatory requirements, such as the extent to which the agency completed formal consultations and issued biological opinions within 135 days. Standards for internal control in the federal government state that agency management should use quality information to achieve the agency's objectives and should design appropriate controls for information systems that ensure that all transactions are completely and accurately recorded. FWS has limited controls that would help ensure the completeness and accuracy of its data. For example, FWS officials said that they did not perform systematic reviews to examine the accuracy of the data, and that they did not have procedures for follow-up when errors are found. To address these weaknesses, FWS officials said that the agency is developing a new database to better track consultations and would develop new standard-operating procedures and guidance for data entry. However, FWS officials could not provide specific time frames for implementation or documentation of these efforts. Therefore, GAO recommended that FWS develop plans and time frames for improving its new consultation tracking system and develop appropriate internal controls, such as electronic safeguards and other data-entry procedures, to ensure accurate data on the time taken for consultations. In 2022, GAO confirmed that FWS created a new tracking system used to track its consultations and incorporated electronic safeguards and other controls to ensure accurate data. Specifically, FWS launched its new consultation tracking system that includes electronic safeguards, such as automatic validation that requires user to correct errors within the system and date fields that default to automatically enter the current date as the project start date. The new system incorporates automatic reminders to check existing project records to avoid the creation of duplicate records. In addition, the FWS includes a log that tracks who enters data and when the date is entered into the system to ensure accuracy and accountability of the data. As a result of these actions, FWS is better positioned to ensure it has accurate data on the time taken for consultation reviews, which was the intent of GAO's recommendation.
National Marine Fisheries Service The Assistant Administrator for Fisheries should direct the National Marine Fisheries Service to develop plans and time frames for improving its new consultation tracking system and develop appropriate internal controls, such as electronic safeguards and other data-entry procedures, to ensure accurate data on the time taken for consultations. (Recommendation 2)
Closed – Implemented
Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act directs federal agencies to consult with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) when an action they authorize, fund or carry out, such as a highway or transit project, could affect listed marine species or their critical habitat. In 2018, GAO identified limitations, such as incorrect or missing data and inconsistent data entry practices, in more recent NMFS data, and such limitations would limit future analysis of trends in the duration of consultations. These limitations could also hinder analyses of the extent to which the agency meet statutory and regulatory requirements, such as the extent to which the agencies completed formal consultations and issued biological opinions within 135 days. Standards for internal control in the federal government state that agency management should use quality information to achieve the agency's objectives and should design appropriate controls for information systems that ensure that all transactions are completely and accurately recorded. NMFS has limited controls that would help ensure the completeness and accuracy of its data. For example, NMFS officials said that NMFS has not tracked the accuracy of its data and that many fields in NMFS's database do not have safeguards to limit data entry errors. To address these weaknesses, NMFS officials said that the agency is modernizing its database, including improving data entry, error prevention, maintenance, and tracking of actions under programmatic agreements. However, NMFS officials could not provide specific time frames for implementation or documentation of these efforts. Therefore, GAO recommended that NMFS develop plans and time frames for improving its new consultation tracking system and develop appropriate internal controls, such as electronic safeguards and other data-entry procedures, to ensure accurate data on the time taken for consultations. In 2019, GAO confirmed that NMFS created a new tracking system used to track its consultations and incorporated electronic safeguards and other controls to ensure accurate data. Specifically, NMFS launched its new consultation tracking system that includes methods that identify whether consultations have exceeded 135 days or if time frames have been extended. The new tracking system also includes electronic safeguards, such as date fields that only allow users to enter the current date as the initiation date. As a result of these actions, NMFS is better positioned to ensure it has accurate data on the time taken for consultation reviews, which was the intent of GAO's recommendation.

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Authorizing legislationEnvironmental impact statementsEnvironmental impactsEnvironmental lawEnvironmental policiesEnvironmental reviewInfrastructure projectsPublic roads or highwaysTransportationHighway projects