The Reducing Environmental Barriers to Unified Infrastructure and Land Development (REBUILD) Act would speed up the construction of infrastructure projects while also reducing costs and maintaining environmental protections.
Under the act, states would be permitted to enter into a memorandum of understanding with any federal agency that has environmental review responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The states can then assume the review responsibilities of that agency. This would allow state governments to integrate NEPA compliance into state approval processes and would eliminate the need for reviews at the federal level.
States would be required to uphold the same NEPA standards as the agency.
“The REBUILD Act reduces the cost and time necessary to build infrastructure projects at a time when many California communities are struggling to find the resources necessary to construct them,” said Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), who introduced the bill, said. “For far too long we have allowed our regulatory red-tape to grow into a complex web that makes it too costly and time-consuming to build adequate infrastructure. As a result, our communities are unable to upgrade their critical systems, jeopardizing public safety and thwarting economic growth.”
The bill is modeled after the SAFETEA-LU pilot program.