The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Center for Environmental Excellence (CEE) is looking for state assistance in updating the contents of its Programmatic Agreement Library or PAL database.
[Above photo courtesy of Oregon DOT.]
The PAL database functions as a “central library” or “one-stop-shop” for programmatic agreements between state departments of transportation and/or the Federal Highway Administration in partnership with resource agencies that help streamline compliance with federal environmental laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act.
The PAL contains not only the programmatic agreement information; it contains a link to the full agreement and provides on-going access for practitioners to research agreements that meet specific requirements.
However, most of the agreements within the database are 10 years old, so the CEE is asking states to review the documents within the PAL to see if they are still valid, need to be updated, or removed entirely.
State agencies willing to help review those PAL documents can contact the CEE at environment@aashto.org.
