USACE has just announced the upcoming migration of RIBITS to the cloud on Amazon Web Services. Administrators expect moving RIBITS to the cloud environment will make access for users easier, facilitate data sharing with other programs, provide the system with additional capabilities, and provide RIBITS with Development and Training environments. Final system migration will place a short hold on RIBITS data entry to ensure that no data is lost in the process.
There are also upgrades coming to RIBITS over the next
couple of months. Improvements will include FHWA modifications allowing
RIBITS to track activities for example by the range-wide Indiana Bat ILF
program overseen by the Service. Additionally, new permissions have been developed
("Consumer" permissions) that as assigned by a district, region, or
FO would allow a DOT or MPO (Municipal Planning Organization) to manage bulk
credits purchased by the DOT or MPO.
RIBITS is also being upgraded to track NRDA (Natural
Resource Damage Assessment) activities, first under a pilot project for
Portland Harbor (OR), with a framework useful to tracking NRDA actions in other
parts of the country.
A newly released Government Accountability Office (GAO) report is shining a spotlight on a concern many in the mitigation banking industry have raised for years: inconsistent implementation of the federal compensatory mitigation program across U.S. Army Corps of Engineers districts. Under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, the Corps requires compensatory mitigation
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For too long, environmental policy debates have been framed around a false and unproductive premise: that economic growth and environmental protection are inherently at odds. This mindset is not only outdated—it is actively harmful to both outcomes. Mitigation banking offers a clear path forward. By design, it aligns economic incentives with ecological restoration, proving
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