Plan Proceeds for A New Highway at Nation’s Capital

Federal and Maryland state officials have reached an agreement on a revised environmental impact statement for the Inter-County Connector (ICC) in Washington, D.C. suburbs. State officials called the agreement a "milestone" in the drive to build the highway, which environmentalists and some communities in Washington, D.C. suburbs have been fighting for more than four decades. ICC will cut through several sensitive stream valleys and acres of wetlands, but state officials say they can mitigate the damage.

President Bush put the ICC on the fast track for federal approval. EPA's regional office in Philadelphia said the agency is sticking by its decision announced in February to not seek to veto the project and believes the ICC route being proposed now - with increased environmental protections and improved construction techniques - is substantially different from the ICC it rejected during the 1990s.