Permitting Reforms Proposed Under the 119th Congress
Permitting reform has been an ongoing policy issue for multiple Congresses now. While the 118th Congress adopted some permitting reforms as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act and nearly adopted a larger permitting reform as part of the Energy Permitting Reform Act, the topic is gaining traction under the 119th, with more bills and deeper policies proposed. While not exhaustive, this piece attempts to lay out the broad strokes of key legislation and explain their likely effects. It should not be considered an R Street endorsement of listed legislation.
SPEED Act
Reps. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine) introduced the Standardized Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act (SPEED Act) in July 2025. The bill is an extension of Rep. Westerman’s permitting proposals from last Congress, except more comprehensive and now bipartisan.
The SPEED Act includes three key policies:
Judicial Review Reform
The SPEED Act would make two major changes to judicial review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The first is that plaintiffs litigating government permits must have submitted comments during the public comment period that are relevant to the issue they are litigating. This is significant, as research on NEPA permitting timelines has hypothesized that a lack of knowledge about which environmental effects must be considered sufficient in court leads agencies to err on the side of comprehensive review, thereby lengthening the process. The reform—which already partially exists for some major projects under Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act—would reduce permitting timelines by ensuring agencies know exactly how their draft environmental reviews should be improved before a final permit is issued.
The SPEED Act would also reduce the statute of limitations under which a NEPA permit can be litigated from the current six years to 150 days. Although most litigations against NEPA permits occur almost immediately after issuance, a prolonged statute of limitations can deter market entry. This is because project developers may not want to commence construction while a permit is under threat of litigation.
Codification of SCOTUS Decision
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard a case that challenged the adequacy of a NEPA permit, contending that such permits should also consider any indirect environmental effects (e.g., pollution from activities supported by the permitted project). SCOTUS ruled that this was inappropriate, but importantly the majority opinion noted that lower courts had been improperly vacating permits and delaying projects. The opinion from SCOTUS was that permits should be vacated only when the asserted permit deficiency would have altered the decision to issue a permit.
The SPEED Act codifies some of this. First, it narrows the consideration of effects for review under permits to direct effects. Second, it clarifies that issued permits should still be considered active while agencies work to correct deficiencies. In other words, if a court finds that a permit’s supporting documentation is improper, a project can still move forward with construction unless the deficiency of the permit would have prevented it from being issued at all.
Paperwork Reduction
The SPEED Act has several provisions designed to make supporting documents for permits more durable and to expand the list of acceptable documents for consideration. The act also clarifies that agencies are not required to seek out or produce new environmental studies if there is sufficient existing available information, nor must they consider any new studies that emerge during the permitting process.
Furthermore, SPEED contains a number of provisions that narrow the applicability of NEPA, expand categorical exclusions, and prevent future reversals of issued permits between administrations.
SPEED and Reliability Act
Not to be confused with the SPEED Act, the Streamlining Powerlines Essential to Electric Demand and Reliability Act (SPEED and Reliability Act) proposed by Reps. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and Andy Barr (R-Ky.) focuses on electric power transmission permitting issues.
The bill aims to ameliorate the difficulties of permitting large interstate transmission lines by enhancing federal backstop authority and removing some political authorities. Specifically, the bill would remove the Department of Energy’s authority to designate broad areas for transmission (called “corridors”) as within the national interest, transferring this authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to apply to specific projects.
Additionally, the bill aims to expand state and local engagement in the federal permitting process of electric power transmission and mandates a one-year period of engagement before FERC can permit a project. The bill further aims to clarify “cost allocation,” where those who benefit from new federally permitted transmission (e.g., lower electricity costs) must also bear the project costs.
The thinking behind the SPEED and Reliability Act is that although the federal government currently has the authority to expedite the permitting of significant electric power transmission lines through its designation of national interest electric transmission corridors, this authority is almost never used. It is complicated, rarely applicable to real projects, and opposed by states and localities that might be impacted. The reformed approach would centralize authority within FERC to focus on approving proposed (rather than theoretical) projects while expanding state and local engagement to address concerns of project opposition, though this federal backstop authority is only utilized if the state-level process fails or is impossible.
FREE Act
The Full Responsibility and Expedited Enforcement Act (FREE Act) introduced by Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-Utah) is a proposed “permit-by-rule” (PBR) legislation. PBR allows developers to begin construction without a permit so long as the final construction complies with government regulations.
Although it is considered a PBR proposal, the legislation would not directly implement any PBR policies. Rather, the bill would require government agencies to identify and report to Congress opportunities for PBR implementation within their permitting guidelines and to adopt PBR processes for those opportunities.
PBR is a relatively novel concept and may only have limited applicability to large-scale projects that require significant environmental review before being permitted. However, most permits do not require significant review from the government, often falling within “categorical exclusions.” That makes it possible for PBR to cover a wide swath of low-impact projects permitted by the federal government.
ePermit Act
Introduced by Reps. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) and Peters (D-Calif.), the ePermit Act aims to digitize much of the NEPA-related permitting information collected and published by the federal government. There is little standardization or publication of permitting data from the federal government, making the analysis of relevant permitting trends difficult. It is also a problem for permitting expediency, because government agencies do not always know if the documentation they need for permits already exists.
The ePermit Act represents a potentially low-cost way to make necessary information more readily available to permitting agencies. It could also improve accountability by increasing the transparency of choke points within federal permitting processes.
Policy Insight
These efforts represent just some of the permitting policy efforts currently being contemplated this Congress. Importantly, they each target different elements of federal permitting identified as in need of reform. While different elements of reform will deliver varying levels of improvement for federal permitting timelines, it is unlikely that any single reform will be sufficient to remedy protracted federal permitting timelines.