News Summaries
New transportation law promotes permeable pavers
After months of discussion, Congress passed and the President signed, the first new transportation construction bill in years, beating a June 30, 2012 deadline. This law is the first ever to include permeable pavement provisions.These provisions add concerns such as storm water runoff and flood control to U.S. transportation policy. They task the Secretary of Transportation to take advantage of the benefits of permeable pavements as a solution to those concerns. Pavers provide major advantages in mitigating storm water runoff and flood mitigation. The new law also tasks the Transportation Secretary to conduct research and spread information on the uses of permeable pavements such as pavers.
The Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute (ICPI) drafted the permeable pavement provisions and submitted them to Congress. Passage of the new law culminates a 15-month comprehensive strategy of intensive, highly targeted lobbying by ICPI to use the transportation bill as a vehicle to promote pavers in federal transportation policy.
With the law passed, ICPI hopes to work closely with the Department of Transportation to develop an implementation plan that promotes the use of permeable pavers as the permeable pavement of choice.
ICPI would like to thank all the Members of Congress, and the members of ICPI who assisted in passing the permeable pavements provisions into law. Visit www.icpi.org.
