Permitting Reform

Permitting Reform Principles and Proposals:

1. Establish a timeline for NEPA reviews detailing a deadline for environmental impact statements and environmental assessments.
2. Empower the President to designate and update a diverse list of critical infrastructure projects to prioritize federal permitting on.
3. Expand eligibility for the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council programs to include energy projects, new technologies, critical minerals and mining, and others.
4. A single lead agency should be designated following a project application to oversee and issue a single environmental review and a uniform purpose of need statement.
5. Clarify FERC jurisdiction on interstate hydrogen pipelines, associated facilities, and the economic factors associated with these assets.
6. Establish a statute of limitations and deadline to file lawsuits against issued permits.
7. Congress should codify and encourage the use of tiering, allowing projects of similar types to build their analysis on previous environmental assessments and existing studies.
8. Develop a process with greater transparency and oversight. Combining this process with public notifications would aid in ensuring projects are easily and closely tracked by stakeholders and government officials.
9. Congress must fully fund CEQ, FPISC, Department of Commerce and other federal agencies, and the various agency staff with NEPA responsibilities to ensure timely completion of reviews.
10. Allow applicants, contractors, and local communities to participate in the preparation of documents for the NEPA review process.
11. Section 401 of the Clean Water Act must be revised to limit the timeline for certification decisions by states.
12. Strengthen FERC’s authority as the lead agency to permit electric transmission and natural gas pipeline projects and require federal, state and tribal agencies with a review role to participate simultaneously with and on a timeline determined by FERC, instead of on a separate and staggered basis. Additionally, Congress to the greatest extent possible, should expand categorical exclusions for the building of transmission lines.