The House Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 20 passed H.R. 4776, the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, by a vote of 25-18.
The legislation would amend the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process to streamline environmental permitting for infrastructure projects.
The committee also passed by unanimous consent, a package of seven bills, including two permitting-related items. The first is H.R. 4503 by Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD-At Large) called the ePermit Act, which would digitize the federal permitting process and H.R. 573 by Rep. Rudy Yakym (R-IN-2) the Studying NEPA’s Impact on Projects Act, which would require the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to report annually on the NEPA review process in an effort to identify bottlenecks.
