20181598_Att. 07 - Gloria Shepherd Declaration No_20160222

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA
WESTERN DNISION
No. 5:15-CV-29-D
CATAWBA RIVERKEEPER FOUNDATION,
and CLEAN AIR CAROLINA,
Plaintiffs,
v.
)
NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF )
)
TRANSPORTATION; )
EUGENE CONTI, Secretary, NCDOT; )
FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION, and )
JOHN F. SULLIVAN, DIVISION )
ADMINISTRATOR, FHWA, )
)
Defendants )
)
I, Gloria M. Shepherd, declare as follows:
Attachment 07
Chief Judge James C. Dever III
No. 5:15-CV-29-D
DECLARATION OF
GLORIA M. SHEPHERD
1. I am the Associate Administrator for the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA)
Office of Planning, Environment and Realty, and I have served in that capacity since February
2007. The Office of Planning, Envirorunent and Realty, as a unit, is made up of various offices,
which serves as FHWA's advocate and national leader for environmental protection and
enhancement, for comprehensive intermodal and multi-modal transportation planning, and for
fair and prudent acquisition and management of real property. As part of my current duties at the
FHWA, I provide senior level leadership with regard to the complex planning and NEPA
processes needed to assist FHWA's field offices and state DOT's in assuring coinpliance with
the procedural requirernents that lead to the implementation of Federal-aid highway and related
Case 5:15-cv-00029-D Document 75-3 Filed 04/10/15 Page 2 of 6

transportation projects. This involves both the development of policy and the oversight of its
implementation.
2. Several staff inembers within the Office of Planning, Environment and Realty,
including Brian J. Gaxdner, have worked with the FHWA North Carolina Division on the Garden
Parkway project and the Monroe Connector/Bypass. In addition, FHWA counsel has apprised
me of the status of litigation challenging both projects, and I have read the Court's Order. I am
thus generally familiar with the specific facts relating to the use of geospatial socioeconomic
land-use data in the FHWA's the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), 42 U.S.C.
§§ 4321-4347, analysis of the Garden Parkway.
3. I am familiar with and have a role in the development of policies and practices of the
Federal Highway Administration and Congress's mandates to the agency. As described in
FHWA regulations at 23 C.F.R. Part 450 Appendix A, "Congress has directed that federally-
funded highway and transit projects must flow from metropolitan and statewide transportation
planning processes (pursuant to 23 U.S.C. §§ 134-135 and 49 U.S.C. §§ 5303-5306)." FHWA
implements this directive by consistently encouraging its division offices and transportation
project sponsors to link their NEPA analyses to the local planning process, so that the
transportation agencies can eliminate redundant studies and expedite project delivery. Local
metropolitan planning organizations ("MPOs") already gather and compile geospatial
socioeconomic land-use data to satisfy Congress's direction to MPOs to develop long-range
transportation plans for at least twenty years in the future. See 23 U.S.C. § 134(i)(2)(A)(ii).
When transportation agencies and local sponsors rely on the MPO's already-existing geospatial,
socioeconomic land-use data set in complying with NEPA, the agencies can leverage the MPOs'
local expertise and investments collecting local data. That process allows FHWA and state and
DECL. OF GLORIA SHEPHERD
Catawba Riverkeep er Foundation v. N. C. Dep't of Transp., No: 5:15-CV-29-D
Case 5:15-cv-00029-D Document 75-3 Filed 04/10/15 Page 3 of 6

local sponsors to avoid metaphorically "reinventing the wheel" for every NEPA study they
undertake. When FHWA adopts a MPO's geospatial socioeconomic land-use data, it does not do
so blindly. The FHWA's Intera�n Guidance on the Application of Travel ancl Land Use
FoYecasting in NEPA implements FHWA's policy and instructs FHWA divisions to analyze the
MPO's modeling calibration, validation, and reasonableness before relying on it.
4. FHWA's Interim C'ruidance on the Application of Travel and Land Use Forecasting in
NEPA further recognizes that some situations may suggest a need to develop a second set of
geospatial socioeconomic land-use data froin scratch for use in traffic forecasting. For example,
if a project sponsor defines a project's purpose and need to stimulate economic development, or
if that is a likely effect, FHWA and the local sponsor may deternline that a second set of
geospatial socioeconomic land-use data is appropriate. But FHWA's experience and technical
analyses have led it to conclude that not every transportation project induces significant growth.
In part for that reason, FHWA has not adopted a policy of requiring development of two sets of
geospatial socioeconomic land-use data sets from scratch for every single project.
5. Instead, FHWA routinely relies on expert models to develop second sets of geospatial
socioeconomic land-use data to estimate indirect and cumulative effects of building projects and
thereby to comply with NEPA. FHWA does so because those expert inodels have proven tried
and true and because they are an order of magnitude easier, cheaper, and quicker than developing
a second set of socioeconomic data from scratch. FHWA routinely uses models, like the gravity
model that the FHWA North Carolina Division and the North Carolina Depa�-tment of
Transportation (NCDOT) used for the Garden Parkway. It has confidence that those models can
effectively predict future land uses and can accuxately estimate shifts between build and no-build
geospatial socioeconomic land uses. FHWA relies on those models also to allow it and state and
DECL. OF GLORIA SHEPHERD
Catawba Riverkee er Foundation v. N.C. Dep't of Trans ., No. 5:15-CV-29-D
Case �:15-cv-00029-D Document 7�3 Filed 04/10/15 Page 4 of 6

local project sponsors to comply with NEPA while decreasing the burden, cost, and time of
generating a second set of data from scratch.
6. Time and money are scarce in FHWA's budget, and FHWA constantly balances the
resources Congress provides, so it can best advance its mission while providing the greatest
benefit to the people of the United States. If a court imposed a requirement on FHWA to develop
the second geospatial socioeconomic land-use data set for every project (except where 98.5% of
the study area is already developed), that would potentially have tremendous repercussions for
the more than 109 environmental impact studies FHWA currently has underway across the
United States. A per se rule requiring two sets of socioeconomic data to be used for traffic
forecasting could significantly increase project costs and significantly delay project delivery
without making the NEPA analysis more useful to the public or to the FHWA decision-maker. It
certainly would impair FHWA's ability to analyze highway projects' environmental effects
expediently and cost-effectively. Therefore, if the Court rules that NEPA and the APA require
FHWA and state and local transportation agencies to generate two sets of socioeconomic data
from scratch for every project, it will undermine FHWA's policies based on its experience and
technical knowledge, it will drain FHWA's and state and local sponsors' time and money
without material benefits to their missions, and it will undermine FHWA's efforts to advance
Congressional and Administrative policy.
DECL. OF GLORIA SHEPHERD
Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation v. N. C. Dep't of Transp., No. 5:15-CV-29-D 4
Case 5;15-cv-00029-D Document 75-3 Filed 04/10/15 Page 5 of 6

7. The FHWA and NCDOT acted consistent with these already-existing FHWA policies
in completing the NEPA analysis of the Garden Parkway.
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1746, I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and
correct.
Executed on Apri110, 2015,
���z+� ! � /
Gloria M. Shepherd
DECL. OF GLORIA SHEPHERD
Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation v. N. C. Dep't of Transp., No. 5:15-CV-29-D
Case 5:15-cv-00029-D Document 75-3 Filed 04/10/15 Page 6 of 6