The US House Appropriations Committee has released its draft report accompanying the FY21 THUD Appropriations bill ahead of the full committee markup.
The US House Appropriations Committee has released its draft report accompanying the FY21 THUD Appropriations bill ahead of the full committee markup. The draft contains ICPI-recommended language regarding permeable pavement. It is noteworthy that ICPI’s recommendation encompasses all the report’s explicit reference to permeable pavements that is used by the Committee, the only reference to permeable pavement.
(House Committee on Appropriations, FY21 THUD Appropriations Committee report draft, excerpt):
Permeable pavements.—The Committee encourages the Secretary to accelerate research, demonstration, and deployment of permeable pavements to achieve flood mitigation, pollutant reduction, stormwater runoff reduction, environmental conservation, and resilience for new road construction and retrofit of existing roads. The Committee encourages the Secretary to conduct structural evaluations of flood-damaged pavements, with emphasis on local roads and highways subject to flooding and extended periods of inundation. Such evaluations will contribute to understanding the mechanisms of flood damage and how permeable pavements might be used to prevent or reduce damage from future flooding.
The FY21 THUD Appropriations bill is not yet law and will need to take several big steps before that occurs; but this establishes a strong baseline and the baseline that ICPI was seeking and makes such anticipatory thinking worthwhile.