[Blog] [T]he 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.
Report:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/CEQ-E-NEPA-Report-to-Congress_Final-508.pdf
Appendix 4 – 18F Path Analysis:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Appendix-4-18F-Final-Path-Analysis-Report-Expediting-Permitting-508.pdf
Appendix 5 – 18F Feasibility Study:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Appendix-5-18F-Final-Path-Analysis-Report-Feasibility-Permitting-Tool-508.pdf
Blog:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/ceq/news-updates/2024/07/17/ceq-releases-recommendations-on-digital-tools-to-modernize-environmental-reviews-increase-transparency-and-accessibility-of-federal-permitting/