By Jeff Mulliken
The bipartisan federal infrastructure law that Sen. Lindsey Graham helped craft and pass in 2021 makes critical investments in building, strengthening, and modernizing America’s infrastructure, including our network of roads, bridges, and highways.
While these investments have enormous potential to help address our nation’s dire infrastructure needs, they could be wasted if Congress does not also work to reform our convoluted, overly cumbersome federal permitting process.
As it stands, the federal review and permitting process for new infrastructure projects or improvements is rife with inefficiencies and redundancies that can add years to a given project’s timeline.
Not only do the delays created by an overly bureaucratic permitting process serve to prevent the actual physical construction of new infrastructure, but they can also increase costs and risks for investors, in some cases making projects less financially viable and leaving them stalled in a regulatory quagmire.
Congress must pass bipartisan reform to help expedite the federal environmental review and permitting process.
Doing so would allow local engineering firms like Carolina Transportation Engineers and Associates to study, design, and build out new infrastructure more efficiently and quickly, ensuring the benefits of these projects reach South Carolina communities sooner.
That includes job creation, new economic opportunities for local businesses and industries, and an improved quality of life for all South Carolinians.
Without such reform, many of the critical investments outlined in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) could be needlessly squandered.
That is why construction, building, and engineering firms throughout the state are hoping that bipartisan permitting reform is another area in which Sen. Graham can lead. Having recently met with the senator to thank him for his work on the IIJA and other issues important to the American Council of Engineering Companies-South Carolina (ACEC-SC), I am optimistic about the future of permitting reform in Congress.
During our meeting in Washington, D.C., in May, Graham met with members of the ACEC-SC. Industry leaders gave him countless examples of how our current regulatory climate has stifled infrastructure projects all over our state.
ACEC-SC and its member companies support permitting reform to implement major infrastructure improvements more quickly, which benefits engineers and the public. Graham was sympathetic to our problems and understood our frustration. His commentary on the issue encouraged us.
Graham’s support for federal permitting reform should not come as a surprise. Republicans in Congress and in state capitals nationwide have long been calling for an overhaul of the federal environmental review and permitting processes to help expedite a range of infrastructure and energy projects that would help create jobs, grow our economy, and create a safer, more modern transportation infrastructure for our entire country.
Importantly, streamlining and simplifying our nation’s dysfunctional federal permitting process does not mean America would need to lessen environmental protections to any degree.
New transportation and energy projects in the United States are held to some of the highest environmental standards in the world. Bipartisan permitting reform would seek to move critical, economy-building projects forward in a timelier, more efficient manner by reducing administrative hurdles that currently hinder progress.
Moving forward, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle should work to advance federal permitting reform that will help maximize the full potential of the infrastructure investments South Carolina and states across the country are now receiving through the IIJA.
Ultimately, bipartisan permitting reform is in the best interest of our economy, communities, and efforts to bring America’s core infrastructure into the 21st century.
Jeff Mulliken holds a doctorate in civil engineering and is a certified professional engineer. He is a partner at Carolina Transportation Engineers & Associates, PC, where he is responsible for planning, designing, and managing transportation projects. Mulliken’s experience includes managing highway and aviation projects and overseeing environmental and traffic engineering studies, structural design and analysis, and soil-structure interaction analysis, among other engineering projects.
