Sen. Cramer Urges Use of One Federal Decision Rule to Speed Up Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Projects at EPW Hearing

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WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Ranking Member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee, discussed the importance of One Federal Decision in expediting project approvals, flexibility provided to states through formula funding, and ideas to streamline the grant application processes at a Senate Environment and Public Works hearing on the state and local perspective of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

“Listening, particularly to the three local and state officials, your stories, your reflections, and your experiences reflect the diversity of our great country. [They] serve as testimony each individually and all together as to why flexibility is so darn important. I hear about drought in Arizona and flooding in the Northeast. We have a diverse country. Our geology is different. Our hydrology is different. Our demography is different. We’re all different. This speaks volumes [about] the importance of federalism and states having more control,” said Senator Cramer. 

Senator Cramer then pivoted to a discussion on the importance of One Federal Decision and reining in the bureaucracy to cut down project timelines with American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Executive Director Jim Tymon. 

“[The bureaucracy] almost never pays attention until we tell them what they’re prohibited from doing. The lack of a prohibition to them is a license to do whatever they want. That’s what you’re experiencing… I want to go into something we haven’t talked about that was in the [Bipartisan Infrastructure Law] specifically, and that is the One [Federal Decision] rule. One [Federal] Decision is not to cut corners. It’s not designed to diminish the integrity of oversight or environmental protection. I think you can do it much, much better; much, much faster; [and] with more efficiency and integrity, [through One Federal Decision]. If you do them chronologically, rather than concurrently, you’re going to add time. But if you do it concurrently, you’re going to add synergy. Not just efficiency, but synergy. [This is] what makes sense to me, but the bureaucracy likes chronological because it serves their interests best. That way every agency can take as long as they want to do a simple thing and then pass it to another agency to take as long as they want to do a simple thing. The [One Federal Decision] rule is not being utilized, and I think [it] could be the answer to a lot of your challenges. Couldn’t the [One Federal Decision] become part of the solution?” asked Senator Cramer. 

Mr. Tymon, who represents State Departments of Transportation, agreed with Senator Cramer and supported finding ways to expedite the approval of infrastructure projects.

“I do think that every state [Department of Transportation] in the country supports finding ways to expedite the approval of projects and doing it in a responsible way where we’re not harming the environment. I do think that the [One Federal Decision] provisions do carve out a path for there to be a more efficient decision-making process. We’ve been advocating for 10-15 years for a more concurrent review process as opposed to consecutive. I think this provides a good foundation for us to move forward in that direction,” said Mr. Tymon.

Senator Cramer concluded by asking for ways to simplify the discretionary grant application process to remove bureaucratic obstacles and get infrastructure dollars out to communities faster.

“On the issue of discretionary grants, we’ve heard about the importance of the formula. Again, can we simplify even the discretionary grant programs by just applying the basics? I get that [the bureaucracy is] coming up with more ways to make it harder rather than facilitating it in my view,” said Senator Cramer. 

“For several of the discretionary grants, [there’s] a common application, and I have to give a lot of credit for that because I think that did help. For people that were potential grantees, they were able to just go to one application, but it wasn’t for every discretionary grant that they had out there. I think that is going to be a challenge for this Administration moving forward, given the size of the discretionary grants and the number of them, how can they do that in an efficient manner to process those applications and get the dollars out on the street I think that’s going to be very tough,” responded Mr. Tymon.