"Mitigation banking is a little-known and sometimes misunderstood system" writes John Paul Woodley, then Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) under President George W. Bush as he introduces mitigation banks and banking in his thoughtful piece 'Mitigation for Aquatic Resource Impacts: A Primer on Mitigation Banking', offering a clear and concise introduction to mitigation bank establishment and the importance of banks in offsetting unavoidable environmental impacts.
Woodley, current Chairman of the National Mitigation Banking Association, is the recognized authority on the 2008 Final Mitigation Rule (Rule) which bears his signature and which he enacted as then-Secretary under the Bush Administration.
U.S. Army Corps regulations require that unavoidable impacts to jurisdictional waters must be offset by appropriate compensatory mitigation with the goal of no-net-loss of wetlands or streams. The Rule allows the mitigation banking industry to respond, with significant private investment, to some of the most complex and challenging environmental problems facing U.S. water resources today.
Read Mitigation for Aquatic Resource Impacts: A Primer on Mitigation Banking by John Paul Woodley
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 when permitted
Read MoreFor 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 This mindset is not only outdated—it is actively harmful to both outcomes.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 that well-functioning
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