The Trump Administration has made improving the efficiency of federal infrastructure permitting a priority. President Trump’s Executive Order on Unleashing American Energy identified permitting efficiency as a strategy, and at least two cabinet secretaries have identified permitting improvement as a core pillar of their mission.[1][2],[3].
In his Executive Order on Unleashing American Energy, the President called for the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to rescind nearly 50-year-old regulations directing government-wide implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This direction has created confusion and uncertainty as agencies rush to update their own NEPA regulations in accordance with the CEQ guidance issued February 19.[4] At the same time, the President’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is seeking to “delete entire agencies” to reduce and restructure the federal workforce.[5] This destruction of our long-standing institutions poses a significant risk to achieving the President’s objective of moving infrastructure to construction sooner—a challenge I wrote about here.
However, there is opportunity in this chaos to leverage a little-known agency to work across the federal government to accelerate permitting and enhance interagency coordination to deliver infrastructure sooner. That agency is the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council or Permitting Council, where I served as Executive Director under President Biden.
Established in 2015 under Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act), the Permitting Council was created by Congress to address a very real challenge with permitting large infrastructure projects—its purpose is to increase the transparency, accountability, and predictability of the permitting process. The Permitting Council works across the federal government to hold agencies accountable to agreed-upon deadlines established as part of a comprehensive permitting timetable. The Permitting Council provides qualifying project sponsors who volunteer for coverage with project-level technical support to develop that comprehensive permitting timetable that is posted on the Permitting Dashboard providing transparency into the often opaque permitting process.
The Permitting Council consists of Deputy Secretaries (or equivalents) from 13 federal agencies involved in the funding or permitting of critical infrastructure projects, as well as the Chair of CEQ and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The second-in-command at these cabinet-level agencies meet at least quarterly to discuss permitting performance on FAST-41 “covered” projects and seek opportunities to improve permitting writ large.
CEQ was created by NEPA to oversee its implementation and tasked with advising the President on environmental matters. CEQ does not issue permits, nor does it typically “do NEPA” by drafting environmental documents and issuing decisions—that responsibility lies with the agencies providing the funding or issuing the permit. However, when members of Congress or the punditry invoke “permitting reform” they are inevitably talking about permitting and NEPA. But those distinctions become very wonky very fast, and many people don’t understand the difference. With that in mind, I’d suggest that the President leverage the Permitting Council and embrace the role Congress originally envisioned for it—to serve as an interagency body focused on improving environmental review and permitting across government. In other words, let the Permitting Council be the tide that lifts all permitting boats.
The Permitting Council has, by statute, senior decision-makers from each agency with permitting responsibilities already as members, and supports efficient decision-making of critical infrastructure projects. The Permitting Council does not issue permits, but it does serve a role in advocating for project sponsors during a complex and often misunderstood federal permitting process.
During the Biden Administration, the Permitting Council supported $114 billion in FAST-41 infrastructure project investments and grew its portfolio of projects by 40%. Projects that leverage the Permitting Council’s assistance achieved Record of Decision under NEPA nearly 18 months faster than projects that did not seek FAST-41 coverage.[6] The Permitting Council is effective; if this Administration is serious about improving permitting and moving projects faster, it should lean into the Permitting Council and leverage it to accomplish better permitting outcomes.
Despite its history of successful coordination across agencies to deliver critical infrastructure projects, President Trump has not included the Permitting Council in his many initiatives to accelerate permitting. Consider the National Energy Dominance Council created by Executive Order 14213.[7] The National Energy Dominance Council has as one of its key roles the responsibility of “advis[ing] the President on improving the processes for permitting […] American energy,” yet the Permitting Council is not named as one of the 18 federal agencies or offices listed as members of the National Energy Dominance Council. More recently, the President issued a Presidential Memorandum establishing an “America First Investment Policy.”[8] In this memorandum directed at 16 federal agencies or offices, the President states his intention to “expedite environmental reviews for any investment over $1 billion in the United States.” Who does the President task with expediting environmental reviews and permitting in this memorandum? The Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In fact, the Permitting Council—whose mission is to coordinate across agencies for better permitting outcomes—isn’t even mentioned.
The notable absence of the Permitting Council in these permitting-related policy directives from the President is surprising, considering the proposal in Project 2025 to move the Permitting Council into the Executive Office of the President.[9] Rather than leveraging this existing tool created by Congress, the President and his team continue to create new councils and assign new responsibilities to existing agencies. This runs counter to their focus on efficiency.
To fully leverage the Permitting Council in support of permitting process improvements, the President and Congress will need to work together to make targeted structural changes. With a full restructuring of the federal bureaucracy already underway, now is the time. The Senate took initial steps to update FAST-41 during the last Congress with the bipartisan Permitting Council Improvement Act, but as with all things related to permitting reform in the last Congress, it didn’t make it across the finish line.[10] Now is the time to revisit and rethink what the Permitting Council could become, through the following actions:
- The President should empower the Permitting Council to oversee and implement his permitting initiatives. Through multiple executive orders and other policy directives, the President has directed agencies to explore emergency authorities and conduct internal reviews to determine how to accelerate permitting and reduce regulatory burden. Those actions cannot be siloed within the agencies and must be coordinated across government to understand better the interdependencies of actions and possible effects of proposed changes. The Permitting Council is perfectly positioned to serve this function.
- The President should direct the Permitting Council Executive Director to work with Permitting Council members to prioritize the use of the FAST-41 program to support timely decision-making on critical infrastructure projects. FAST-41 is a voluntary program where project sponsors must choose to apply for FAST-41 coverage. However, the Executive Director of the Permitting Council is authorized to direct agencies to post projects to the Permitting Dashboard in the interest of transparency. Furthermore, the Permitting Council members can encourage projects seeking funding or approval from their agency to pursue FAST-41 coverage. Expanding the portfolio of FAST-41 covered projects would apply permitting best practices related to schedule creation, transparency of federal actions, and predictability in the process to more projects.
- The President should direct agencies to track all federal environmental reviews and approvals necessary to construct and begin operations on a project—consistent with the FAST-41 statute. Although the statute does require that agencies develop comprehensive permitting timetables that include federal authorizations “required or authorized under Federal law in order to site, construct, reconstruct, or commence operations of a covered project,” in practice the permitting timetables typically end at the initial permit approval and the NEPA decision.[11] This only tells a part of the story and doesn’t provide project sponsors with a full understanding of what is required to construct and operate a project. Only by detailing and tracking these subsequent permitting steps during final design and construction will we be able to determine where further efficiencies are available in the process.
- Congress should pass the Permitting Council Improvement Act with the following key changes:
- Authorize the Permitting Council Executive Director to issue regulations and guidance governing the implementation of FAST-41. Current law places the authority for issuing FAST-41 guidance with CEQ and OMB. When Congress created the Permitting Council, the agency was set to sunset in 2022. In its early years, the agency consisted of staff on detail from other federal agencies, contract staff, and few permanent staff. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, that sunset was removed and the agency transitioned to a permanent agency. Since that time, the Permitting Council has grown with permanent staff and built its technical capacity to oversee and implement the FAST-41 statute. With the Executive Director responsible for implementing the statute, it makes sense that the Executive Director has the authority to issue guidance on that implementation. Further, as events warrant, the Executive Director may need to issue regulations regarding implementation of FAST-41. As we’ve seen with recent court cases with opinions that state that CEQ has no legal authority to issue NEPA regulations because that authority wasn’t expressly conveyed by Congress, this is a logical amendment to the law to clarify the role and responsibility of the Permitting Council’s Executive Director.
- Lower the cost threshold to become a covered project. The current cost threshold for becoming a FAST-41 covered project is a total project investment of $200 million. That creates a barrier to entry for smaller but equally critical projects. Lowering the threshold to $50 million would create greater opportunity for projects to leverage the permitting support offered by the Permitting Council and expand the use of permitting best practices such as public timetables, schedule accountability, and greater predictability into the permitting process.
- Clarify that port projects funded through the Maritime Administration are eligible for FAST-41 coverage. The statute is ambiguous on whether port projects funded under Title 46 (through the Maritime Administration) are eligible for coverage under FAST-41. Congress should make this simple fix to allow critical port projects that are essential to our economic growth access to the FAST-41 program.
The strategies here are straightforward and present low risk and high reward. If the Trump Administration is serious about improving interagency coordination and accelerating federal permitting for infrastructure programs, it would do well to look toward the existing body created by Congress for that very purpose.
[1] See Executive Order 14154, Unleashing American Energy.
[2] See action 9, “Streamline Permitting and Identify Undue Burdens on American Energy,” from Energy Secretary Wright’s direction for “Unleashing the Golden Era of Energy Dominance.”
[3] See Pillar 3, “Permitting Reform, Cooperative Federalism, and Cross-Agency Partnerships,” from EPA Administrator Zeldin’s “Powering the Great American Comeback” Initiative.
[4] See memorandum from the Executive Office of the President: Implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
[5] See reporting from Politico: ‘We need to delete entire agencies’: Elon Musk has bigger plans for remaking the government.
[6] See press release from Permitting Council: Permitting Council Executive Director Releases Summary of Accomplishments Detailing Tremendous Growth During Biden-Harris Administration.
[7] See Executive Order 14213, Establishing the National Energy Dominance Council.
[8] See Presidential Memorandum: America First Investment Policy.
[9] See pages 60–61 in Chapter 2, “Executive Office of the President of the United States,” from Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.
[10] See S. 4679: Permitting Council Improvement Act of 2024.
