The White House is moving ahead with President Donald Trump’s plan of accelerating and infusing environmental reviews with technology — even as the guideposts for conducting those reviews continue to change.
The Council on Environmental Quality on Wednesday announced that it has established an internal “permitting innovation center” to helm the process of revamping and shortening agency reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, for everything from pipelines to mines and power plants.
Katherine Scarlett, CEQ’s chief of staff, told agency heads in a memo that the council would lead the center, which was created in response to a directive that President Donald Trump inked in April. That memo asserts that federal officials aren’t leveraging technology in reviews and permitting of all types of infrastructure projects.
The center will be responsible for ensuring data feeding into environmental reviews is processed more quickly; that agencies are leveraging technology; and that legal departments across the government have the support, funding and technology to defend permit decisions and environmental documents.
