Next Steps

The Transportation Permit Efficiency and Accountability Committee (TPEAC), the Transportation Performance Audit Board (TPAB), and others have demonstrated the benefits of collaborative decision-making forums. These forums include interagency interdisciplinary project teams (IPT) and co-located multi-agency permit (MAP) teams. Demonstrated benefits include:

• early identification of significant issues through multi-party agency review;
• improved understanding of the project across all reviewing agencies;
• improved understanding of each participant’s constraints and issues;
• more efficient and effective management and reconciliation of conflicting requirements in advance of final decisions;
• faster decision making due to team commitment, improved coordination, and better project design; and
• more complete submittals from an applicant due to advance collaboration in understanding regulatory needs and issues.

In looking ahead, TPEAC encourages further development and expansion of these types of forums, methods and approaches. Accordingly, as part of the Governor’s Regulatory Improvement Program, TPEAC urges the Governor’s Office of Regulatory Assistance (ORA) to work with state, local and federal permitting agencies to improve, simplify, and integrate processes. TPEAC recommends at least the following steps as key to aligning and meeting the interests of the full range of decision-makers, applicants, and stakeholders.

• Expand and Advance the MAP Team Concept (i.e., beyond the initial WSDOT-oriented MAP Team developed in October 2003):

  With ORA’s support and leadership the MAP team model can be extended to other applicants and additional Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) projects. The next evolution of MAP teams can better integrate local review with state and federal environmental review and decision-making. An expanded MAP Team concept can provide fully integrated and reconciled regulatory response. This more fully integrated approach will also allow better coordination with a broader range of stakeholder interests, will facilitate watershed-based mitigation, and will result in better overall environmental outcomes.

• Finalize the DRAFT Interagency Project Team (IPT) Guidance:

  The IPT DRAFT Guidance and Appendices provide detail on convening and conducting IPTs as a tool for streamlining WSDOT project delivery. The DRAFT guidance should be finalized, combined with input from ad hoc teams and MAP teams, and made available to project managers, interagency teams, and others at WSDOT. The final guidance should be made available to other projects and could become one of the tools used by ORA in its work with local, state and federal agencies.

• Performance Measures:

  Measuring and quantifying benefits of coordinated permitting approaches is and will remain a point of focus for the WSDOT MAP Team, as well future MAP Teams. Anecdotal information to date is supportive of early- and regular-engagement between permitting teams and project applicants and proponents. Generating quantifiable performance data on such relevant dimensions as time and cost saved, environmental outcomes achieved, and streamlined and more efficient decisions made has been a challenge. Lack of relevant baseline data has furthered this challenge. In looking ahead, generation of baseline data will likely be necessary for the MAP Team, as well as for establishing a data collection and tracking framework that can be extended to future MAP Teams.

History/Background Information

• Interagency Project Teams: The TPEAC One Stop Permitting and Pilot Projects Subcommittees were involved in monitoring two pilot projects (Hood Canal and SR 24). As part of that effort, a survey about the process was conducted (TPEAC Pilot Projects Interdisciplinary Team Questionnaire Report, December 2003) and guidance for managing and participating in an interagency/interdisciplinary team was developed (TPEAC One-Stop/Pilot Projects Subcommittee Interagency Project Team Guidance November 2003). The survey report was finalized and included several recommendations. The guidance reached a draft stage and was shared with WSDOT project managers for initial use and feedback to identify needed improvements, but not finalized.
  
  The One Stop Permitting and Pilot Projects Subcommittees merged into one subcommittee in late 2002. Members of the newly joined subcommittee observed the pilot projects and the interdisciplinary teams. They noted that participants preferred to focus their time on addressing substantive resource issues rather than developing a team process. They also observed that for the Hood Canal project, where the team essentially worked on two projects in sequence, the team worked much more efficiently on the second project. The subcommittee wished to document what was learned from these teams so that it could be used for future teams and would not require time to recreate the tools. Additionally, if all the teams use the same tools and process framework on all projects, the process will become familiar and predictable, decreasing time on process and freeing up time for substantive discussions.
• Multi-Agency Permitting (MAP) Team: The MAP Team is a project delivery organizing framework originally developed by the Washington Departments of Ecology (WSDOE), Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), and Transportation (WSDOT). MAP was conceived as a model to apply the processes and tools developed in TPEAC across a spectrum of WSDOT projects. The MAP Team consists of representatives from regulatory agencies and WSDOT who are responsible for meeting project timelines and permitting requirements for a given set of WSDOT projects.
  
  In November 2003, the first MAP Team was formed. The team consists of:
  • Washington State Department of Transportation;
  • Washington State Department of Ecology;
  • Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife ;
  • United States Army Corps of Engineers; and
  • King County Department of Development and Environmental Services (joined January 2004)

  The MAP Team works together to identify potential permitting risks, develop cooperative processes and solutions, and provide a unified package of environmental information to the project manager early enough to make a difference. The MAP process can reduce environmental impacts and provide a structured environmental permitting process resulting in efficient project delivery. For additional information, visit the MAP Team website.
   

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Ongoing/Related Efforts

Other significant efforts at institutionalizing interagency forums to foster improved coordination and collaboration on projects include:

• Signatory Agency Committee (SAC): The SAC is an interagency committee that utilizes an agreed upon process for select transportation projects. The SAC Agreement applies to all transportation projects in the state of Washington requiring an individual U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Section 10 or Section 404 permit, and Federal Highway Administration action on and environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act and Washington Department of Transportation action under the State Environmental Policy Act. The goals of the SAC process are to create a clear, consistent and efficient process that occurs within a predictable timeline, provides a forum to exchange information, has committed participants, results in the completion of environmental impact statements that adequately consider the environment, and results in the delivery of transportation projects. Participants include: Army Corps of Engineers; NOAA Fisheries Environmental Protection Agency; Federal Highway Administration; US Fish and Wildlife Service; Department of Ecology; Department of Fish and Wildlife; and Department of Transportation
• Ad Hoc Interagency Project Teams:  Ad hoc interagency project teams have formed for individual transportation projects (e.g. Resource Agency Leadership Forum for Alaska Way Viaduct, SR 520, Columbia River Crossing, I-90, I-405). These teams are collecting information on their process so that it can be incorporated into a single guidance document.
• One-Stop E-Permitting Service:  The One-Stop E-Permitting Service provides an inter-agency project management and collaboration function. The Service is a web site that provides many of the functions of a project room that contains all the participants and project documents. It is a virtual project room (i.e., “web room”) developed and organized around the project. It provides a central project location, accessible by others, to store and access a variety of project materials during all stages of the project including documents that would support permit applications and decisions. The Service resides on a secure server that is easily accessible to authorized persons (i.e., the “interagency project team”). Different participants have different levels of access to documents (i.e., some can only view, while others can view, upload, and download). The functions of the One-Stop E-Permitting Service support good project management, management and maintenance of project information, interagency communication, and customer understanding through project orientation.  Read more about E-Permitting in the Library.