Executive Order 13274: Environmental Stewardship and Transportation Infrastructure Project Reviews
President: George W. Bush
Directed agencies to expedite environmentally responsible reviews of high-priority transportation projects, created a Transportation-led interagency task force, and required annual reports on project results and streamlining lessons.
Status: Superseded. Is Executive Order 13274 still in effect? No. Executive Order 13274 was superseded. See Federal Register record.
What does Executive Order 13274 do?
The order assigned these duties: Transportation Secretary — Designate and update the high-priority project list; Reviewing agencies — Create coordinated procedures and expedite lawful reviews for listed projects.
Checked the transportation-review directives against the order and later permitting streamlining measures. The guide treats later frameworks as superseding the initiative in practice and does not say EO 13274 waived environmental review laws.
Before and after
Before the order
Transportation environmental reviews proceeded through separate agency processes, with statutory streamlining provisions but no presidential priority-project task force.
After the order
Transportation selected 13 initial priority projects and created interagency workgroups; four had final decisions by the end of FY 2003 and annual implementation work continued through the Bush administration. EO 13286 added Homeland Security to the task force. Later orders, the Permitting Dashboard and the FAST Act’s FAST-41 process supplied broader successor mechanisms.
Who had to do what
| Agency / office | Action | Timing / position |
|---|---|---|
| Transportation Secretary | Designate and update the high-priority project list | As appropriate |
| Reviewing agencies | Create coordinated procedures and expedite lawful reviews for listed projects | During each project review |
| Interagency task force | Review priority projects and report results and recommendations to the President | Quarterly review; report at least annually |
What happened next
EO 13274 signed.
EO 13274 created the priority-project and task-force process.
EO 13286 added the Homeland Security Secretary to the task force.
Legal and source detail
How it works legally
The order required faster coordination only within existing environmental, safety, public-health and permitting law. Its no-private-right clause means challenges attach to a project’s review or permit under statutes such as NEPA, not to an independently enforceable EO deadline. No order-specific merits judgment was located.
Sources by type
If a source is unavailable, first check the cited publisher or another official repository. The cited publisher remains the authority.
Primary and official sources
Orders, laws, court records and official implementation material.
- FHWA — FY 2003 performance report (opens in a new tab) Official record
- FHWA — FY 2008 implementation activities (opens in a new tab) Official record
How we checked this
Last checked against the sources above on October 2, 2026. How we research →