Almost every state and community has a story about a needed transportation project that is taking too long and costing too much to build — or isn’t being built at all. These are projects that would make travel safer, provide more and better choices for getting people and freight where they need to go, support housing production and economic development, reduce pollution, and make the transportation system more resilient to extreme conditions like flooding, high temperatures, and earthquakes. To quote the Build America Caucus, “America struggles to build the transportation and infrastructure it needs at the speed and cost that Americans deserve.”

Is the federal review and approval system under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) the only thing slowing projects down and driving prices up? No. Would the fixes to NEPA and other federal permitting systems included in the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) substantially improve the speed and cost of project delivery — without jeopardizing environmental protections? Absolutely yes.

I appreciate concerns that BAAJA could undermine the use of NEPA to stop “bad” projects, such as highway expansions – I began my career as an environmental litigator using NEPA to improve, delay, and sometimes stop such projects. Unfortunately, using environmental permitting to block the bad has opened the door to using the same processes to block good, needed projects. As the Supreme Court unanimously (!) decided in its 2025 Seven County Infrastructure Coalition case, “NEPA has transformed from a modest procedural requirement into a blunt and haphazard tool employed by project opponents (who may not always be entirely motivated by concern for the environment) to try to stop or at least slow down new infrastructure and construction projects.”

I witnessed the downsides of NEPA while running a multimodal state transportation department, overseeing the control board for a transit agency that needed to deliver repair projects, leading the Federal Highway Administration during the first year of IIJA, and working in the USDOT Office of the Secretary on IIJA grant and project delivery. Sadly, I learned that NEPA has largely become an obstacle to getting good projects built, rather than a tool for stopping bad ones. Which projects did NEPA delay while I was at USDOT? Bridge repairs and transit investments, ports and roadway safety projects, congestion pricing for New York City, and a project to build a community grid in place of a highway in Syracuse, New York. Which projects moved through the NEPA process largely unchanged and without a successful court challenge? Pretty much every major highway expansion.

BAAJA fixes many of the ways in which the NEPA review and approval process impedes transportation projects. More than 90% of federally funded transportation projects do not ultimately require the preparation of Environmental Impact Statements, the most onerous form of review. Once federal formula or grant funds are used, however, the project sponsor must prove that their project does not require NEPA review — itself a time-consuming and expensive process. BAAJA would eliminate this step: the bill states that many types of federally funded transportation projects are not subject to NEPA at all.

BAAJA will expedite many transportation projects, but three categories are especially critical: safety improvements, state of good repair projects, and projects that cities, counties, and Tribal nations fund using competitive grants.

Safety projects, especially local projects built under programs like Safe Streets for All, rarely impact the environment, but they can be locally controversial. While safety projects should easily receive a “categorical exclusion” from NEPA, such exclusions can be denied merely because the project involves a “substantial controversy.” BAAJA will statutorily exclude the vast majority of federally funded safety projects from NEPA, getting them underway faster and more effectively directing funding toward meaningful safety upgrades rather than wasting limited resources on obtaining categorical exclusions.

Transportation agencies and advocates are increasingly focused on bringing aging and outdated roads, bridges, and transit systems into a state of good repair. The vast majority of repair and modernization projects should not require NEPA review unless they either increase roadway capacity or create adverse impacts under a statute like the Clean Water Act. BAAJA accomplishes this with its “lifeline infrastructure” provision, which creates a NEPA carve-out for projects to repair, reconstruct, restore, retrofit, or replace lifeline infrastructure “in the immediate vicinity” of an existing asset. Under this provision, critical projects would be relieved of NEPA delays or claims of controversy: rail agencies could correct dangerous highway crossings, transit agencies could add infill stations or make stations accessible, bridge owners could lift weight restrictions and correct structural problems, highway agencies could make roads resilient to flooding, high temperatures or earthquakes, and local agencies could build safe infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists.

Agencies that want to expand the capacity of a bridge or highway do not receive this exemption from NEPA: BAAJA excludes any bridge or highway project that results in additional travel lanes from the definition of lifeline infrastructure. Indeed, with NEPA review required for capacity expansions and eliminated for state of good repair projects, agencies may choose to direct more federal dollars to building the easier, faster “fix it first” projects.

BAAJA also addresses a serious problem that became apparent with the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. IIJA created dozens of new competitive grant programs and increased funding to the cities, towns, counties, and Tribal nations that own and manage much of the country’s critical transportation infrastructure. Under NEPA, however, all but de minimis federal transportation funding triggers review. State transportation departments receive almost all of their funding via formula funds which are “obligated” (meaning guaranteed and available to use) as soon as they are apportioned. By contrast, competitive grants are not obligated until NEPA is completed.

While most grant-funded projects qualify for categorical exclusions, the process to secure one can be difficult for first-time federal fund recipients to navigate. Grantees generally can’t access grant funding to navigate the NEPA process, and this resource-intensive process can extend longer if project opponents block a categorical exclusion by claiming that a project is controversial. NEPA can thus delay grant-funded projects without any environmental benefit; such delays can even cause grantees to miss obligation deadlines and lose funding. By establishing that receiving a federal grant does not automatically trigger NEPA, BAAJA would fix this problem.

BAAJA would also streamline environmental and judicial review for capacity-increasing highway projects, but they would remain major federal actions and, under BAAJA, would still require NEPA review, public engagement, and environmental approvals.

BAAJA will expedite transportation project delivery by relaxing the procedures that make it harder to repair, rebuild, and modernize our roads, bridges, transit, rail, and ports to make them safer and more modern. It’s time to make it easier to build the transportation infrastructure Americans want and need, without unnecessary delays that slow projects down and drive costs up. Transportation and transit agencies and advocates alike should push to pass BAAJA this year.

After spending a decade in senior leadership positions at the US and Massachusetts transportation departments, Stephanie Pollack is currently working to improve transportation policy implementation and project delivery as an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Senior Fellow at the MIT Mobility Initiative.