Dive summary:

• Holding up highway and bridge repairs during an emergency in order to do regulatory paperwork is frustrating at best, and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) had got together with a rule that speeds up some environmental reviews for work in areas where a governor or the president has declared an emergency.
• The typical project that will benefit from the change would not have significant environmental impacts anyway, but it falls under the National Environmental Protection Act and its review structure.
• The rule creating a categorical exclusion for those projects so they can get expedited reviews is the first one to happen under a part of the MAP-21 transportation program, which calls for officials to look at the system and find places where categorical exclusions make sense.

From the article:

Earlier this week, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) issued a joint final rule implementing new regulations....