Miss Your Permitting Deadlines? You're Grounded.

Energy & Natural Resources Senior Policy Advisor Beth Viola was quoted in a POLITICO Pro article about a provision in a bipartisan federal permitting reform bill that would restrict travel for agency heads if they fall behind on approving projects. Tucked away in the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA), a paragraph titled "No travel outside duty station" states that if the agency approving a project misses a deadline for environmental review by more than two months, the leader of said agency cannot travel more than 25 miles from their official duty station. The ban would apply to Cabinet-level officials such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary as well as the heads of agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Contextualized within the package's broader goals of speeding up permits and accelerating project development, the proposal seeks to force agencies to focus on the task at hand when work piles up. However, Beth remarked, though creative, it could prove impracticable.

"I don't know how you tell the EPA administrator that because he's not approving permits quickly enough, he can't go tour a natural disaster," she commented. "While I appreciate the effort by appropriators to have a hammer, it's just not super clear how they enforce it."

READ: Miss Your Permitting Deadlines? You're Grounded. (Subscription required)