The White House released on Tuesday a Fact Sheet announcing that Federal agencies are signing a One Federal Decision Memorandum of Understanding, establishing a coordinated and timely process for environmental reviews of major infrastructure projects.
It reveals that “One lead Federal agency will be responsible for navigating each major infrastructure project through the entire Federal environmental review and permitting process.” It also underscores that “Federal agencies will follow permitting timetables established by the lead Federal agency, with a goal of completing the process within two years.”
“Streamlining permitting is vital to combating America’s $4 trillion infrastructure backlog,” said Philip Howard, chair of the nonpartisan nonprofit Common Good. “Putting one agency in charge of the federal government’s review and permitting of each project is an essential step, and underscoring two years as the goal for completing that process is another. President Trump is right to make this a priority and to use his executive powers to advance the streamlining process.”
Common Good’s landmark study Two Years, Not Ten Years: Redesigning Infrastructure Approvals recommended that “[f]or permits, one agency should have overriding permitting authority, with the obligation to balance the concerns of other agencies and departments.”
It also proposed “a dramatic reduction of red tape so that infrastructure can be approved in two years or less, not, often, 10 years.” The study also revealed that a six-year delay in starting construction on public projects costs the nation over $3.7 trillion, including the costs of prolonged inefficiencies and unnecessary pollution.
Common Good is a nonpartisan reform coalition that believes individual responsibility, not rote bureaucracy, must be the organizing principle of government. It presents proposals to radically simplify government and restore the ability of officials and citizens alike to use common sense in daily decisions. The founder and chair of Common Good is Philip K. Howard, a lawyer and author of The Rule of Nobody (W. W. Norton) and The Death of Common Sense (Random House), among other books.
