The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers announced Monday an effort to cut red tape for critical infrastructure projects, including ones in Michigan.
The “Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork” effort aims to fund major water resource projects and shorten timelines for permits.
“This will eliminate bureaucratic delays and provide fast, clear decisions needed to save lives and empower our economy,” said Adam Telle, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works in a press release.
The effort will attempt to address regulatory hurdles and attempt to standardize things like permitting.
“I think we're all excited,” said Nicholas Zager, the operations chief for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineer's Detroit District. They work on projects across the state of Michigan.
He says the effort will allow for a more standardized permitting process and the Army Corp and contractors will be able to work faster.
He gave an example of a recently awarded multiple award task order contract that hopes to make dredging bodies of water more efficient.
"Let's say the Detroit River needs to be dredged, or Grand Haven needs to be dredged or Muskegon needs to be dredged," Zager said. "We have a contracting vehicle in place where we can expedite the contracting process to award that contract faster.
The faster we can get…these contracts out, the quicker our contractors are going to be able to get out there and clean out and maintain our navigation system."
The internal initiative will not change emergency response efforts or compliance with environmental regulations.
Ultimately, Zager says the goal is to get the Army Corp to focus on “core missions,” including infrastructure, navigation and disaster response and mitigation.
“It's a matter of prioritizing the big infrastructure that really the private sector, local municipalities, they can't do,” he said.
The initiative will likely not impact the effort to build a new Soo Lock, which is on time and on budget.
