To ‘build back better’ we must first be able to build

America badly needs to modernize its infrastructure. But before it can do that, Congress first needs to repair the outdated, sclerotic federal permitting process. To “build back better” we must first be able to build. 

Many otherwise “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects get snarled for years in bureaucratic gridlock. Developers routinely find themselves navigating environmental reviews that require up to 62 authorizations spread across 13 federal agencies.  

Finding bipartisan compromise on the size and scope of an infrastructure bill will be hard enough. But policymakers are ignoring perhaps the most essential issue — permitting, which has become a maze of process obstacles that only Congress can address. 

The tangible benefits of projects initiated today with new funding, won’t be realized for 5 to 7 years. After years of project design, engineering, planning and financing, the 2-to-4 year permitting process commences, pushing orders for new windmills, solar panels, transmission lines, charging stations, construction equipment, steel, concrete and labor contracts years into the future. Only after all of that can the 2 to 3 years of construction begin.

The consequences are easy to see. The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (which I directed from 2018-2020), analyzed 69 major projects, and found that bureaucratic delays cost developers $100 billion. New wind and solar projects take 2.3 years (on average) to receive federal permits, 3.3 years for electricity transmission projects, and 4.7 years for major new road projects. On average, 20 to 30 percent of total project funding is wasted on unnecessary red tape. 

Permitting confusion among three agencies within the Department of Interior has stymied an $800 million solar project in Nevada. A proposed 300-mile electricity line to deliver renewable electricity from Idaho to Oregon commenced permitting in 2010, yet federal agencies can’t find a way forward on more than 30 federal and 50 state and local permitting actions and another 100 water-crossing approvals. One highway project in the Southwest was stalled for years over back-and-forth between 19 so-called “cooperating agencies,” negotiating over at least nine major federal permitting actions. Federal infighting and bureaucratic battles add tens of millions to project price tags. 

The inconvenient truth: Every project that turns dirt, encounters habitat or alters landscape, creates unavoidable interactions with nature, triggering reviews under the hundreds of laws and regulations governing infrastructure permits. This statutory maze is notorious for redundancy and overlapping agency requirements, some dating back over 100 years.

Despite a bipartisan desire to fix these existential problems, pressure from vocal stakeholders on both flanks and a political propensity to avoid risk perpetuates the status quo and leaves lawmakers looking for superficial fixes. 

The key to unlocking future consensus is to prove environmental protection can be strengthened through greater coordination and efficiency — not shortcuts to the process. But to achieve this balance, Congress must untangle the web of overlapping statutes that cannot serve America’s infrastructure needs in the 21st century. 

Congress can start small with the creation of temporary initiatives to test new policies in the field under conditions ideal for compromise. The first step is to create a seven-year expedited permitting pilot program for a discrete list of the most critical (and least controversial) projects. 

It won’t be hard to field a list of projects to prioritize. Take the dozens of offshore wind projects worth $70 billion waiting to start their 2 to 3 year permitting review. Add 22 electricity transmission lines that could deliver a 50 percent increase in U.S. wind and solar power but are struggling to get started. Major solar projects that are viable at utility scale could also be prioritized.

Granting this essential, but temporary, new authority to the Biden-Harris administration, and the next White House, will create a ‘safe space’ to experiment with innovative reform and expedited permit authorizations. Outcomes can be scrutinized and studied by Congress for feasibility, then converted into more lasting reforms across all sectors in future relationships. 

Acknowledging the mistakes of past reform initiatives, confronting the hyperbole on our political flanks, and working together to advance a permit reform pilot program, we can protect our natural resources while charting a path to new infrastructure advancements that safeguard communities, create jobs, and bring American industry to life.

Alex Herrgott is the founder and president of The Permitting Institute, a non-partisan association accelerating investment in America’s aging infrastructure, while preserving our environmental, cultural, and historic treasures. He was executive director of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council and associate director for infrastructure at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.