Efficient permitting isn’t a partisan luxury – it’s a national imperative. As our nation confronts rising energy demand, aging infrastructure, and growing pressure on our natural lands, the question is not whether we should reform our permitting processes; it’s how quickly and boldly we will. Removing politics from the process isn’t about stifling debate; it’s about ensuring that decisions are made on facts, timelines, and transparency rather than ideological gridlock, outdated regulations, and litigious activists. With the passage of the SPEED Act out of the House Natural Resources Committee, Congress is one step closer to enacting meaningful reform. 

The policy imperative is clear: streamline, clarify, and accelerate the permitting process – without sacrificing environmental protection. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) has devolved into a procedural maze of redundant reviews, legal delays, and speculative analysis. The result? Years of delay, billions of dollars in cost overruns, and costly impacts on energy consumers, taxpayers, and the economy. 

The stakes are high. The U.S. produced more energy in 2024 than ever before, yet rising electricity demand is straining our grid and higher prices are squeezing household budgets. At the same time, our forests and public lands need active management to reduce wildfire risk — but meaningful conservation efforts are often delayed by slow permitting. In short: our economic competitiveness, energy security, and environmental goals all depend on reforming how we build, not how we delay.

The SPEED Act offers concrete reforms: narrowing the scope of analysis under NEPA to factors that bear a “reasonably close causal relationship” to the project; broadening the use of categorical exclusions where appropriate; and avoiding redundant federal reviews when states or tribes have already conducted comparable analysis. On the judicial side, the bill reforms standing and statute-of-limitations provisions so that genuine community voices are heard — without endless procedural games blocking investment and development. 

These reforms are bipartisan and will advance nonpartisan objectives: more reliable energy, more resilient infrastructure, and healthier lands. Common-sense permitting reform doesn’t pick winners and losers on ideology; it empowers project developers, communities, and taxpayers. Families benefit when energy isn’t overpriced because of bureaucratic delay. Communities benefit when roads, ports, and rail move forward on time and on budget. The environment benefits when worthwhile forest restoration projects proceed and harmful backlogs are cleared. 

Critically, there is bipartisan momentum to improve project certainty across all project types. Democrats are rightly frustrated by recent actions by the Trump administration against renewable energy, such as revoking a permit for an offshore wind project and increasing reviews of renewable projects on federal land. Republicans have been rightly frustrated by Democratic administration actions to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline (multiple times), retroactively block a coal mine permit, block oil and gas lease sales, and “pause” liquefied natural gas exports. Led by Rep. Stauber (R-MN) and Rep. Golden (D-E), the committee approved a bipartisan permitting certainty amendment to the SPEED Act by voice vote during the markup. 

The reality is that too often permitting turns into politics by another name — where the process is weaponized to delay desirable outcomes rather than ensure them, and litigation is used as a strategic tool rather than a last resort. When the goal becomes delaying through litigation rather than improving outcomes, we cannot let that stand. When the permitting process is burdensome, opaque, and unpredictable, it undermines investment confidence, obstructs economic development, and often results in unintended environmental consequences. 

Reforming permitting is not about lowering standards; it’s about restoring reason. Permitting reform will ensure that environmental safeguards are in place and that projects advance promptly. As I noted in my hearing before the United States House Committee on Natural Resources, in an era of inflation, constrained global supply chains, and growing energy needs, America must build smarter and faster. 

Too much is at stake to let a painstaking process endure at the expense of progress. Let’s build.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.