Biden-Harris administration releases Permitting Action Plan to accelerate federal infrastructure projects

The Biden-Harris Administration recently released a Permitting Action Plan to strengthen and accelerate federal permitting and environmental reviews.

The action plan outlines the Administration’s strategy for ensuring that federal environmental reviews and permitting processes are effective, efficient, and transparent and promote positive environmental and community outcomes.

The plan is built on five key elements. The first is to accelerate smart permitting through early cross-agency coordination. Early coordination and effective communication across federal agencies is critical for moving infrastructure projects forward efficiently and on time.

It will also establish clear timeline goals and track key project information. Communities and project proponents benefit from having clear information about the schedules, key milestones and deadlines, and public comment opportunities for the environmental review and permitting of major projects.

Third, it will engage in early and meaningful outreach with states, tribal nations, territories, and local communities. Early and ongoing engagement with the public, including disadvantaged, underserved, or overburdened communities, and State, Tribal, local, and territorial partners is key to delivering timely projects that serve the needs and priorities of communities across the country.

The fourth key element is improving agency responsiveness, technical assistance, and support. Responsive technical assistance and support help project sponsors, permit applicants, affected communities, Tribal communities, and other stakeholders navigate the environmental review and permitting process effectively and efficiently.

Finally, the plan calls for using agency resources and environmental reviews to improve impact. Timely, informative environmental reviews guided by the best available science and help deliver positive environmental and community impact require sufficient levels of skilled agency staff and effective use of budgetary resources.

“Taken together, these new steps will help strengthen supply chains, lower costs for families, grow our clean energy economy, revitalize communities across the country, support good-paying jobs, and deliver infrastructure investments on task, on time, and on budget without unnecessary bureaucratic delay,” Biden Administration officials said.

There was mixed reaction from industry groups concerning the plan. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) said it fails to deliver the reforms needed to streamline environmental reviews and permitting.

“The administration’s plan fails to address the root of the environmental review and permitting problems plaguing the electric sector,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said. “As we plan for a future that depends on electricity as the primary energy source for most of the American economy, the streamlined siting and permitting of electric infrastructure projects will be a key success factor. Robust reforms are needed to remove barriers and accelerate the construction of modern energy infrastructure.”
However, American Clean Power (ACP) commended the plan.

“The American Clean Power Association applauds the Administration’s Permitting Action Plan as a critical step for ensuring that the permitting process does not unnecessarily serve as a roadblock to deploying greater levels of clean, affordable, and reliable power and achieving broader climate and economic goals,” ACP CEO Heather Zichal said. “The reality is that it will be impossible for our nation to achieve these goals without expediting the time it takes to permit clean energy infrastructure. It typically takes almost half a decade to get through just the environmental review phase for such projects. This plan should help accelerate clean energy infrastructure permitting by setting clear timeline goals for federal permitting and environmental review decisions, and improving coordination among agencies on such decisions, and finding ways to alleviate strained agency resources, among other things.”