On Dec. 4, President Obama signed into law H.R. 22, the "Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act," which included the Senate version of a bill streamlining environmental reviews and speeding permitting of major construction projects in the final conference report to the highway funding legislation. On Dec. 3, Congress passed the bill which, for the first time since passage of a 1969 federal law requiring environmental reviews of major infrastructure projects needing federal permits, will impose a structure on the management, coordination, timing and transparency of the environmental review process for these projects. Its coverage is very broad, including infrastructure, energy, and aviation, broadband and manufacturing projects.
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