Tag Archives: environmental impact studies

Relaxed Environmental Study Rules?

One of the most frustrating aspects of grant-funded projects for the public is that it takes years from the announcement that their neighborhood is covered by a grant until they see the new infrastructure. One of the reasons for these delays has been environmental studies that are mandatory when projects are funded by federal funds.

Environmental studies were first mandated for federal projects by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. This law required environmental studies for what was classified as a major federal action, which means any construction using federal funds, any construction built on federal land, or construction that requires a federal approval or permit. The type of proposed construction would trigger either an Environmental Assessment (EA) or an Environmental Impact Study (EIS). NEPA defined different kinds of activities that would require different types of assessment, with the two most common being impacts on the environment or on historic preservation.

On April 9, the Council on Environmental Quality issued a memorandum to all federal departments that suggests new guidelines for how to implement the NEPA laws. The issues covered in the memo haven’t been mandated by Congress, and don’t carry the force of law. However, it’s likely that most federal agencies will follow the new guidance.

The new guidance establishes what it calls categorical exclusions from the NEPA rules that would soften or eliminate the need for an environmental study if a project is not likely to “significantly affect the quality of the human environment”. It lists three types of categorical exclusions that can be considered:

  • The first categorical exclusion would apply if construction is to occur in an area that was already covered by a previously completed environmental review that did not trigger a full environmental study. Agencies would need to examine the previous environmental review to see if this warrants an exclusion today.
  • A federal agency can also look at other similar exclusions for environmental studies that have been granted in the past by the agency. If a new project is similar in nature to past cases where an environmental study wasn’t required, the agency can determine that a new review isn’t needed.
  • Finally, the agency can rely on the experience and expertise of its staff or outside experts who are familiar with the proposed project to determine if a review is needed.

What does all of this mean in practical application for broadband projects? This might eliminate the need to conduct environmental studies for construction done in the public rights-of-way of roads. The vast majority of fiber construction occurs by burying fiber on the shoulder of roads, which have been excavated in the past during road construction, or hanging fiber on poles that are in the public rights-of-way. It’s always seemed absurd to industry folks that there are any environmental issues from construction close by existing roads, since those areas have probably seen construction multiple times in the past.

The new guidelines would not change the requirements for a project that proposes to build fiber across wetlands or other areas that have never seen past construction. It probably doesn’t make it easier to build close to historic sites. But the new guidelines could eliminate the time and paperwork involved in conducting the environmental review for a majority of federal grant-funded projects. And that is not small thing. Construction can’t begin with grant dollars until environmental reviews are complete. The reviews can take from a few weeks to many months, and if a full environmental study is indicated, a project can be delayed by a year or two.

An Effective Federal Broadband Program, Part 1

eyeballThere are a lot of rumors flying around the industry that there is going to be a big nationwide federal program to fund rural broadband infrastructure. So I’ve been thinking about what such a program might look like. We have the experience a few years back of a few billion dollars being handed out for broadband by the stimulus plan. It’s vital to learn from past mistakes, and so today I look at lessons learned from earlier federal grant programs.

This is the first in a series of blogs that will look a how a federal broadband program could be done to get the most bang for the federal buck. We might only get one chance at this as a country, so I hope we can do this right.

So, in starting with lessons learned from the past, here are a few things that a nationwide federal broadband build-out should avoid:

Don’t Impose Unnecessary Restrictions. There were three rules associated with the stimulus grants that added a lot of cost and delay to projects. A federal project could get a lot more bang for its buck by eliminating the following:

  • Environmental Impact Studies. Telecom networks are built almost entirely in existing rights-of-ways within a few feet of paves roads. So there is no reason to impose a time-eating study to prove that a fiber cable won’t bother endangered plants or animals unless the fiber is being built outside of the existing rights-of-ways.
  • Historical Preservation Rules. Having to check that fiber is not going to somehow disturb historic sites is also silly unless the fiber is being built across open fields. There should be no requirement to do archeological studies for work done in the narrow shoulders of existing highways that have been dug up in the past.
  • Prevailing Wages. I saw projects where requiring prevailing wages added 20% to the cost of the whole project. Prevailing wages sounds like a good idea, but in practice what happens is that large city wages structures are imposed on construction companies that have been building in rural areas for decades. Making these companies pay much higher wages to employees who have worked for them for years is great for employees, but is a terrible waste of the federal dollars.

Don’t Overwhelm the Industry. A federal broadband buildout could be a magnitude larger than the stimulus program and even that program overwhelmed the industry. There are only a finite (and small) number of consultants, engineers and construction companies available in the market and if the government tries to build a lot of infrastructure in a hurry, then a lot of projects are going to be designed and built by companies with no experience.

The stimulus program also showed that it’s not hard to overwhelm the companies that make broadband products. The stimulus program caused a shortage of fiber and prices spiked. There was also a shortage of some kinds of common fiber electronics that delayed projects. It’s hard to imagine what would happen if we tried to build a lot faster than the stimulus program.

Don’t Give Money to Start-ups. The stimulus program gave a lot of money to start-up businesses and a number of these networks have not done well. There was unfortunately a lot of fiber built to nowhere with stimulus funds that even today is barely carrying any traffic. Existing carriers already have the underlying talents and systems in place that are needed to be a successful telecom company. It does not good to get the fiber built to people’s homes unless the company doing so is poised to be a long-term successful ISP.

Hire Experienced People to Review Applications. There was no existing pool of experienced people to review the stimulus grant applications, and so the agencies involved scurried to try to find bodies. I’ve written about this before, but to see if the process was as bad as I feared I encouraged a guy who did my landscaping to apply to be a reviewer. He had done some computer coding years earlier but otherwise had zero experience with telecom. To both of our astonishment he was offered a position as a grant reviewer. If there are a lot of grant funds available there will be a ton of unworthy and faulty applications and it takes seasoned industry veterans to be able to distinguish the good ones from the bad ones.

Take Only Real Matching Funds. The stimulus grants required a significant amount of matching for the federal grant dollars. Unfortunately not all of the matching was with cash and they accepted ‘in-kind’ matching. In-kind matchings were supposed to be an asset that had significant and quantifiable benefits to the project. I reviewed a number of successful grant applications and saw that many of them had made outlandish claims of in-kind matchings that the feds accepted. As an example, I saw one grant that claimed a huge dollar benefit for already having existing rights-of-ways on state highways. The fact is that these same rights-of-ways are available to anybody who meets the qualifications. But the in-kind matching meant that the applicant didn’t need to have any actual matching cash to get the grant.

Get the Industry to Design the Grant Forms. I’ve been doing telephone accounting since the 70’s and the stimulus grants asked for expenses and capital expenditures in a format that baffled me at times. Most telecom companies keep similar books and it’s not hard to ask for financial information in a way that everybody understands.