Environmental Stewardship and Transportation Infrastructure Project Reviews

What are "priority projects"?

Executive Order 13274 requires the Secretary of Transportation to designate high-priority transportation infrastructure projects to undergo expedited environmental reviews. For these projects the Executive Order asks agencies to accelerate their reviews for permits and other approvals.

Since the inception of the Task Force, the Secretary of Transportation has selected 19 projects to undergo expedited environmental reviews. These priority projects consist of 15 highway or bridge projects, 3 airport projects, and 1 transit project.

For eleven of these projects, the environmental review process has been completed. These projects were removed from the Priority Project List and added to a Transition List.

For more information on the ten priority projects for which environmental reviews are still ongoing, visit the Priority Project List. (The Philadelphia International Airport appears on both lists, because the environmental review for one of two related projects has been completed.)

How are priority projects selected?

To select priority projects for the Task Force, the Department set up a nomination process and established selection criteria.

The Department accepted nominations from Governors, metropolitan planning organizations, airport authorities, and other governmental agencies. All nominated projects were added to a Project Register, and a priority projects were selected from the Register.

The Department's core criteria for selecting priority projects were:

• National or regional significance,
• High level of support among local transportation authorities and elected officials, and
• Undue delays resulting from slow Federal agency review or lack of coordination.