FHWA Postpones Rule Establishing GHG Reporting Standards for Federal Highway Projects
Date: March 21st, 2017
Explanation: Regulatory action
Agencies: DOT, FHWA
The Federal Highway Administration (FHA) has further postponed the effective date of a rule establishing natural performance management standards for federal highway projects. The rule requires local and state transportation planners to measure and account for the greenhouse gas emissions of highway projects that receive federal funding. The effective date of the rule has been postponed until May 20, 2017.
The rule was originally postponed earlier this year, in accordance with a White House memorandum calling for freeze of new and pending regulations to give the new administration time to review those regulations before they went into effect. The memorandum specified that the effective date of rules that had already been published in the federal register (which was the case for this rule) should be postponed until March 21, 2017.
The full text of the rule is available here:
GHG Reporting Standards for State and Regional Highway Planners
In January 2017, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published a rule establishing regulations to assess the performance of the national highway system and related programs, including FHWA’s Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) Program. Among other things, the rule requires state and regional highway planners to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions for federally funded highway projects.
- Final Rule (Jan. 18, 2017)
Deregulatory Action: On February 13, 2017, FHWA postponed the effective date of the rule establishing GHG reporting standards for federal highway projects until March 21, 2017, consistent with a White House memorandum calling for freeze of new and pending regulations. On March 21, 2017, FHWA further postponed the effective date until May 20, 2017. On May 19, 2017, FHWA indefinitely delayed the effective date of the GHG reporting standards pending its reconsideration of those standards.
On October 5, 2017, FHWA published a proposed rule to repeal the GHG reporting standards. A final rule repealing the GHG reporting standards was published on May 31, 2018.
Litigation: On July 31, 2017, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Public Interest Research Group, and Clean Air Carolina sued the FHWA for delaying the effective date of the GHG reporting standards, alleging that the agency failed to abide by the required administrative procedures.
On June 13, 2018, the suit was voluntarily dismissed. The parties agreed that, as the Trump Administration has repealed the standards in question, the case is now moot.