Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Transportation agency proposes excluding previously disturbed highway land from Act 250 calculations to avoid duplicative review
Summary
Agency of Transportation chief engineer Jeremy Reed told a joint Senate Natural Resources and Senate Transportation meeting the agency proposes excluding land previously disturbed by transportation facilities from Act 250 acreage calculations for federally funded projects, arguing the change would reduce delay and costs; senators sought details on environmental protections, NEPA overlap, and local impacts.
Jeremy Reed, chief engineer for the Agency of Transportation, told a joint meeting of the Senate Natural Resources and Senate Transportation committees that the agency plans to propose language to exclude land “previously disturbed as a result of the construction of a transportation facility” from the acreage calculation used to determine Act 250 jurisdiction for federally funded transportation projects. "Land that was previously disturbed as a result of the construction of a transportation facility will be excluded from computing the amount of land involved provided that the project is subject to this exclusion," Reed said during the presentation.
The change, Reed said, is intended to reduce duplicative review where projects already have federal environmental review through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and related state permits. Reed described recent projects with inconsistent outcomes — including a bridge project he called a "bridal design" bid project, a divergent-diamond…
Already have an account? Log in
Subscribe to keep reading
Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.
- Unlimited articles
- AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
- Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
- Follow topics and more locations
- 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
