CEQ Releases Recommendations on Digital Tools to Modernize Environmental Reviews, Increase Transparency and Accessibility of Federal Permitting

Directed by Congress, CEQ’s new report assesses and recommends technologies to improve environmental reviews and permitting processes

WASHINGTON — As part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s all-of-government effort to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of federal permitting processes, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) today released new recommendations for using technology to modernize environmental reviews. Directed by Congress in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, CEQ’s Report to Congress on the Potential for Online and Digital Technologies to Address Delays in Reviews and Improve Public Accessibility and Transparency evaluates the potential for technology to improve environmental review and permitting processes.

CEQ’s report complements more than $1 billion from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act to expedite federal agency permitting, the President’s Permitting Action Plan, and other ambitious permitting reforms occurring across the Administration to help accelerate environmental reviews while ensuring strong environmental protections, robust community engagement, and better coordination with states, Tribes, and local governments. These actions include CEQ’s recently finalized Bipartisan Permitting Reform Implementation Rule, which simplifies and modernizes the federal environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

“The Biden-Harris Administration has prioritized improving the effectiveness and efficiency of our permitting processes, including leveraging technology in ways that break new ground for the federal government,” said Brenda Mallory, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “This report outlines how agencies can create better, more efficient digital tools so we can better allocate federal resources to the important work of engaging communities, analyzing environmental effects, and delivering smarter decisions to accelerate permitting for critical infrastructure.”

Over the past year, CEQ has met with technology experts inside and outside the federal government, and participated in dozens of demonstrations of software systems to analyze the technology landscape for environmental review and permitting processes. In this report, CEQ provides recommendations on how to improve permitting technology to achieve the vision of interoperable agency systems and a unified user experience for agency NEPA practitioners, project applicants, and the public. CEQ’s report recommends taking immediate steps that include:

1. Creating a data standard and taxonomy for NEPA;
2. Developing a common architecture for interoperable agency systems;
3. Supporting agency adoption of shared NEPA tools through iterative development of new and existing software applications; and
4. Automating the exchange of data among agency systems to provide a unified experience.

Additionally, the report finds that increasing the interoperability of systems and the use of shared data are the most critical steps in achieving a unified experience. Successful development and implementation of this approach would both improve the permitting process and enable future shared services that could further the goal of achieving a more unified technology platform for environmental reviews.

To read the full text, please refer to CEQ’s Report to Congress on the Potential for Online and Digital Technologies to Address Delays in Reviews and Improve Public Accessibility and Transparency, Appendix 4 – 18F Path Analysis, and Appendix 5 – 18F Feasibility Study.

Steps that the Biden-Harris Administration has taken to use technology and data to improve environmental reviews also include:

• Last fall, CEQ hosted the first Environmental Permitting Technology and Data Summit with agency officials and professionals from the environmental and information technology sectors to discuss how software and other technology and data tools can deliver more effective and efficient environmental reviews.
• In April, the Permitting Council announced the allocation of over $30 million in funding from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to enable federal agencies to build and improve critical IT tools and invest in innovative technologies to advance the efficiency of federal permitting reviews and authorizations of infrastructure projects.
• The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers introduced its new Regulatory Request System, an online application portal that allows the public to submit permit applications and other information when requesting permission to dredge, fill, or conduct activities in jurisdictional wetlands and waters of the United States.
• The Department of Energy announced $13 million in funding to build AI-powered tools to improve siting and permitting of clean energy infrastructure and has partnered with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to develop PolicyAI, a policy-specific large language model test bed that will be used to develop software to augment NEPA and related reviews.  
• The Department of Energy launched the Coordinated Interagency Transmission Authorizations and Permits (CITAP) online portal, a one-stop-shop for qualified transmission developers to track the status of their application, submit materials, and facilitate communication with DOE and other federal agencies. 
• The Department of Transportation launched the Modernizing NEPA Challenge, aimed at making documents associated with environmental reviews more accessible and transparent to reviewing agencies and the public, while also saving time and improving document quality.
• The National Telecommunications and Information Administration launched a permitting and environmental mapping tool to help grant recipients and others deploying infrastructure identify permit requirements and avoid potential environmental impacts when connecting a particular location to high-speed Internet service.

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