LAKEWOOD, Colo. (December 16, 2025)—Mountain States Legal Foundation’s Center for American Prosperity & Energy (CAPE) applauds the U.S. House of Representatives for advancing the Promoting Efficient Review for Modern Infrastructure Today (PERMIT) Act, a legislative package aimed at improving transparency, accountability, and timeliness in federal permitting.
The PERMIT Act offers several targeted reforms designed to eliminate permitting backlogs and ensure that regulators stay within the limits that Congress sets out for them. For energy, infrastructure, agricultural, and wildfire-response across the West, the PERMIT Act will help make sure that projects are no longer stalled by unnecessary or politically motivated federal delays.
“Reliable energy, strong infrastructure, effective protection and use of our forest lands, and productive land use all depend on regulators issuing permits in a functional way that stays within the limits of law,” said Ivan London, Director of the Center for American Prosperity & Energy. “When agencies delay decisions or move the goalposts mid-process, they don’t just frustrate applicants — they undermine Congress’s design and the constitutional balance of authority and responsibility. The PERMIT Act takes meaningful steps toward finding Constitutional balance and ensuring Americans in the West and across the Nation can plan, invest, and build with clarity. CAPE supports reforms that make government predictable and accountable to the public and American Prosperity, because the people who equip, feed, fuel, and house this Nation deserve nothing less.”
The PERMIT Act includes reforms that would:
- Require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to address its backlog of more than 3,500 Clean Water Act permitting decisions.
- Prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from preemptively or retroactively vetoing projects outside ordinary permitting channels.
- Increase transparency and public participation when EPA develops new water-quality criteria affecting landowners, farmers, and energy producers.
- Ensure that fire retardant drops used in wildfire suppression efforts are not stalled by unnecessary regulatory-approval “requirements.”
- Reduce regulatory burdens on farmers and ranchers with practical fuel-storage reforms.
- Extend the reliability of certain nationwide permits to reduce duplicative regulatory review that causes delay, and provide greater certainty for American infrastructure and energy development.
As the Senate evaluates the PERMIT Act, CAPE will continue to champion a permitting system anchored in Constitutional principles, American prosperity, American energy, and the needs of American communities.