Nearly 70 members of the Maryland General Assembly have accused the State Highway Administration of tailoring a federally-mandated environmental study to fit a pre-ordained plan for adding capacity to two highways in the Washington, D.C., suburbs.

They also accuse the SHA, the agency responsible for advancing Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr.’s 2017 lane-widening plan, of failing to follow federal law in determining how new lanes would impact communities where low-income residents and people of color are in the majority — so-called “environmental justice” (EJ) communities.

The lawmakers expressed their “frustration and extreme concern” with the document — the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) of the I-495 & I-270 Managed Lanes Study — in a sharply-worded letter to Lisa B. Choplin, the director of the project, on Wednesday.

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