County highway superintendent at White House introducing new permitting reforms
Washington, D.C. – National Association of County Engineers (NACE) President and Genesee County (New York) Highway Superintendent Tim Hens participated in a White House event with President Donald J. Trump this morning as he introduced new permitting reforms involving the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
“We welcome reforms that will allow for local governments to address our nation’s aging infrastructure in a timely manner,” Hens said. “These reforms will aid counties in their ability to utilize federal funds for road and bridge expansion, repair and rehabilitation more efficiently and expeditiously.
"We applaud the President and Administration and look forward to working together to ensure these common-sense reforms provide a regulatory landscape that will improve project delivery times while maintaining the environmental protections important to our communities.”
This morning’s event highlighted permit and federal process areas the Administration seeks to streamline, including transportation infrastructure project parameters, which would require a federally mandated environmental review.
America’s counties own 45 percent of the nation’s road inventory and 38 percent of its bridge inventory, while investing more than $122 billion on infrastructure and maintaining and operating public works.
Hens is a 1993 graduate of the Air Force Academy and has served as Genesee County Highway superintendent since 1998. As superintendent he functions as the county engineer and oversees the operation and maintenance of all county-owned infrastructure and equipment, including roads, bridges, parks, facilities, airport and water system.
About the National Association of County Engineers
Now in its 64th year, the association is a nonprofit, nonpartisan professional association representing more than 2,400 county engineers, public works directors, highway commissioners, road managers, and related professionals in the United States and Canada. In the United States, local roads account for about 75 percent of highways and roads, or 2.93 million miles. Counties manage 1.74 million miles of those roads. Counties also own 231,000 bridges and operate one third of the nation’s transit systems and airports.
Photo taken of Tim Hens at a GC Public Service Committee meeting in September 2018.
