Lawmakers Consider Bill Reducing Environmental Review For Infrastructure Projects

 

State-funded road and airport construction projects in Georgia could soon be subject to a less rigorous environmental review process.

 

SB 346, a bill from Sen. Brandon Beach (R-Alpharetta) and Sen. Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga), would make that happen. It passed in the state Senate and currently awaits consideration in the House.

 

Beach said his bill would streamline the environmental review process for state infrastructure projects.

 

“I don’t want to wait on paperwork when we can be building a road and increasing mobility and decreasing congestion,” he said. “When you expedite a project you save on right away, construction cost, everything,” Beach concluded.

 

Projects would be subject to some environmental review, according to Beach, just not the process currently required by Georgia law. Beach said the current process is slow and costly.

 

He also said projects that receive federal funding or that cost more than $100 million would not qualify for the exemption.

 

The bill has received opposition from groups like The Society for Georgia Archeology. They argue the bill doesn’t do enough to protect the state’s archeological sites.

 

The legislation comes as the state considers how to spend the approximately $1 billion in funding for expanding and improving Georgia’s transportation infrastructure from the Transportation Funding Act of 2015.