WASHINGTON, D.C – U.S. Senators Angus King (I-Maine), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) today introduced the Federal Permitting Improvement Act, bipartisan legislation designed to streamline and improve the federal permitting process, which is currently laden with uncertainty and unpredictability that hinders investment, economic growth, and job creation. The legislation is modeled on the commonsense, bipartisan permit-streamlining reforms of the 2006 and 2012 transportation bills and recommendations from the President’s Jobs Council, as well as other studies. 

“Our federal permitting system is plagued by too many layers of bureaucracy and poorly coordinated processes. Although well intended, the resulting lack of coordination severely delays – if not completely derails – the ability to move forward with important infrastructure projects,” Senator King said. “Maine suffered from a similar problem when I was Governor, which is why we created a sensible system of ‘one-stop regulatory shopping,’ which vested the responsibility of coordinating and issuing a final permit within one lead agency. This bill would follow Maine’s lead by creating a similar system at the federal level for major capital projects, helping to ensure that the permitting process doesn’t become a barrier to improving American infrastructure. Our country is in desperate need of the work and the jobs that these projects can create. The government should be a partner in helping to provide them, not an obstacle.”

The United States ranks 41^st in the world in “Dealing with Construction Permits,” a key World Bank metric measuring how easy it is to actually build something.

Businesses seeking to undertake major capital projects often must run the gauntlet of a dozen separate agency approvals and reviews.  That process is plagued by a lack of coordination, few deadlines, insufficient transparency, and litigation exposure as long as six years after securing all required approvals. As Senator King can attest, state and local government authorities face the same obstacles when they seek federal permits for infrastructure projects. The resulting uncertainty surrounding major capital projects makes new construction and investments less attractive and hinders job creation. Several recent reports have highlighted the need for modernization of the permitting process, including the 2011 Year-End Report of the President’s Jobs Council, the Business Roundtable’s Permitting Jobs and Business Investment, and the Chamber of Commerce’s Project/No Project report.

The Federal Permitting Improvement Act would improve the permitting process for major capital projects in three ways: better coordination and deadline-setting for permitting decisions; enhanced transparency; and reduced litigation delays. The bill is limited to economically significant capital projects, defined based on the size of the initial investment (more than $25 million). The bill covers major capital projects across all sectors, including renewable or conventional energy production, electricity transmission, surface transportation, aviation, ports and waterways, water resource projects, broadband, pipelines, manufacturing.

This bill also builds on and makes permanent the new permit streamlining project launched by the Obama Administration last year under Executive Order 13,604, and available at permits.performance.gov.  It would not alter substantive standards or safeguards, but rather seeks to create a smarter, more transparent, better-managed process for government review and approval of major capital projects.

Key Reforms include:

Better Coordination and Deadline-Setting

• Creates an interagency council, led by OMB, to identify best practices and deadlines for required reviews and approvals of various types of infrastructure projects.
• Establishes a formal role for a single “lead agency” to set a permitting timetable for each major capital project, in consultation with participating agencies and based on OMB guidance.
• Encourages greater cooperation with state and local permitting authorities.
• Encourages agencies to conduct environmental reviews by the most efficient process available.

Greater Transparency and Early Public Participation

• Creates a public, on-line “dashboard” to track agency progress on required approvals and reviews of major capital projects and to provide access to relevant documents.
• Requires agencies to reach out to accept comments from stakeholders early in the approval and review process, with the aim of identifying and addressing important public concerns early.

Litigation Reforms

• Reduces the current (default) statute of limitations on NEPA suits from 6 years to 150 days — as in the bipartisan 2012 transportation bill, MAP-21.
• Permits courts to consider potential job loss in weighing equitable considerations for injunctive relief.

Senator King also supported the legislation last Congress, testifying before the Subcommittee on Efficiency and Effectiveness of Federal Programs and the Federal Workforce in favor of it. For more information, click HERE.

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