119-hr4503

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4503 Introduced in House

    (IH) ]

<DOC>

119th CONGRESS
 1st Session
 H. R. 4503

To improve environmental reviews and authorizations through the use of 
 interactive, digital, and cloud-based platforms, and for other 
 purposes.

_______________________________________________________________________

 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 July 17, 2025

Mr. Johnson of South Dakota (for himself and Mr. Peters) introduced the 
 following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural 
 Resources

_______________________________________________________________________

 A BILL

To improve environmental reviews and authorizations through the use of 
 interactive, digital, and cloud-based platforms, and for other 
 purposes.

 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

 This Act may be cited as the ``ePermit Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

 The Congress finds that--

    (1) coordination between Federal, State, and local agencies 
 and project sponsors is critical to ensuring the timely and 
 effective completion of environmental reviews and 
 authorizations, including through the sharing of relevant 
 information, alignment of environmental review timelines, and 
 integration of authorizations, while maintaining compliance 
 with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements;

    (2) digital strategies for environmental reviews have 
 proven to make the community engagement process more 
 accessible, available, and transparent to all stakeholders, 
 especially the communities in which new projects are built;

    (3) establishing robust data architectures will ensure data 
 integrity, improve transparency, reduce costs, and enhance the 
 ability of the Federal Government to serve the public;

    (4) Federal agency use of modern software that can track 
 the full lifecycle of environmental reviews and authorizations 
 is critical for--
        (A) effective project management and process 
 improvement;
        (B) enabling workflow automation, transparency, and 
 tracking; and
            (C) simplifying reporting requirements;

    (5) modern business process management systems that track 
 Federal agency workflows and produce interoperable event, task, 
 and other milestone data that can be shared with other Federal 
 agency systems can reduce costs and improve performance for 
 Federal agencies responsible for environmental reviews and 
 authorizations;

    (6) case management systems--
        (A) are essential tools for managing the tasks and 
 activities associated with environmental reviews and 
 authorizations; and
        (B) provide Federal agencies more data and insight 
 into such environmental reviews and authorizations;

    (7) well-defined business rules can enable process 
 automation that allows Federal agencies responsible for 
 environmental reviews or authorizations to expedite routine 
 tasks and workflows, and improve transparency and accuracy of 
 project timeline estimates, which in turn can help project 
 sponsors better plan for application preparation and project 
 delivery milestones;

    (8) taking a standardized, digital-first perspective to 
 environmental reviews and authorizations at Federal agencies 
 responsible for environmental reviews or authorizations will 
 improve document quality, lead to more concise reports, enable 
 the reuse and accessibility of the data underpinning Federal 
 agency analyses and decisions, and enable objective, 
 technology-assisted evaluation of environmental impacts, 
 analysis, and documentation, and accelerate future 
 environmental reviews and authorizations;

    (9) Federal agencies responsible for environmental reviews 
 or authorizations, project sponsors, and the public should have 
 access to up-to-date information on accurate timelines and the 
 status of environmental reviews and authorizations; and

    (10) allowing for seamless information exchange among 
 Federal agencies and between Federal agencies and project 
 sponsors will increase predictability and efficiency of 
 environmental review and authorization schedules for project 
 sponsors.

SEC. 3. ESTABLISHMENT OF DATA STANDARDS.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 180 days after the date of 
enactment of this Act, the Chair of the Council on Environmental 
Quality, in consultation with the Federal Permitting Improvement 
Steering Council, the Chief Information Officers Council, the Office of 
Management and Budget, and other relevant stakeholders and Federal 
agencies, shall develop, publish, and iteratively update data standards 
for the collection and curation of authorization data by Federal 
agencies, which shall be used to--

    (1) assist with environmental reviews and authorizations;

    (2) organize, define, and standardize various concepts, 
 formats, and protocols that are included in environmental 
 reviews and authorizations; and

    (3) reduce the need for redundant environmental reviews by 
 creating a shared vocabulary and software systems that will 
 support data interoperability and automatic data exchange 
 between Federal agencies.

    (b) Inclusions.--The data standards developed, published, and 
iteratively updated under subsection

    (a) shall include the following:

    (1) A standardized taxonomy that allows Federal agencies to 
 identify and track data types, relationships, and values.

    (2) Comprehensive categories for data, such as--
        (A) projects;
        (B) processes;
            (C) environmental documents;
            (D) public comments;
        (E) geospatial information;
        (F) public engagement events, as applicable by 
 process or Federal agency;
        (G) case events; and
        (H) milestones to ensure clarity and uniformity.

SEC. 4. DEVELOPMENT OF PROTOTYPE TOOLS.

 The Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, in consultation 
with the Administrator of General Services, the Federal Permitting 
Improvement Steering Council, the Chief Information Officers Council, 
the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and other relevant 
stakeholders and Federal agencies, shall design, test, and build 
prototype tools for environmental reviews and authorizations that will 
assist Federal agencies in implementing the minimum functional 
requirements described in 

section 5. The Chair of the Council on 
Environmental Quality shall prioritize designing, testing, and building 
tools under this section that--

    (1) support authorization case management systems that 
 manage tasks, milestones, and activities associated with 
 environmental reviews and authorizations, and provide Federal 
 agencies more data and insight into such reviews and 
 authorizations;

    (2) enable application submission and tracking portals used 
 by project sponsors, enabling greater transparency;

    (3) facilitate automated applications, environmental 
 reviews. and authorizations;

    (4) allow data exchange between Federal agency systems; and

    (5) accelerate complex environmental reviews.

SEC. 5. PUBLICATION OF GUIDANCE FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF DATA STANDARDS 
 AND MINIMUM FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS.

    (a) Publication.--Not later than 30 days after the date of 
enactment of this Act, the Chair of the Council on Environmental 
Quality shall publish guidance for how each Federal agency responsible 
for environmental reviews or authorizations implements--

    (1) the data standards published under 

section 3; and

    (2) the following minimum functional requirements:
        (A) Application data sharing that enables automated 
 transfer of relevant environmental review and 
 authorization data among Federal agencies.
        (B) Automated project screening to assist frontline 
 staff with reviewing project sponsor provided 
 information for completeness and accuracy and 
 determining if a categorical exclusion or other general 
 authorization applies to an action. Automated project 
 screening may not be used by the Council on 
 Environmental Quality or a Federal agency to unlawfully 
 restrict any activities on Federal lands.
            (C) Public availability of screening criteria and 
 related decision models.
            (D) Automated case management tools which include a 
 repository of relevant data and metadata that enable 
 advanced tracking, reporting, and optimization to aid 
 workflows.
        (E) Integrated geographic information system 
 analysis tools which incorporate geospatial data layers 
 and models for each resource analyzed as part of an 
 environmental review or authorization for a given study 
 area.
        (F) Document management tools that preserve 
 metadata associated with geospatial analysis, modeling, 
 and other analytic processes conducted during an 
 environmental review or authorization, to support 
 future reviews and enable Artificial Intelligence-
 assisted analysis of past decisions.
        (G) Automated comment compilation and analysis 
 tools, including services for comment categorization 
 and response that handle the lifecycle of comment 
 submission, analysis, categorization and response with 
 Artificial Intelligence support where appropriate.
        (H) Administrative record management tools that 
 maintain both portable document formats and data-rich 
 repositories accessible to both machine and human 
 users.
            (I) Common or interoperable Federal agency services 
 that integrate shared services, shared applications, 
 and common user experiences for Federal agency staff, 
 project sponsors, and the public.

    (b) Inclusions.--The guidance published under this section shall 
include the following:

    (1) Guidelines for cloud-based storage, data sharing 
 protocols, and application programming interfaces to enable the 
 Council on Environmental Quality to work with Federal agencies 
 to use authorization data to aid Federal agencies in 
 modernizing their environmental reviews and authorizations and 
 for iterative development of the authorization portal.

    (2) Provisions that support scalability and adaptability of 
 the minimum requirements to emerging technologies.

SEC. 6. IMPLEMENTATION OF DATA STANDARDS AND MINIMUM FUNCTIONAL 
 REQUIREMENTS.

    (a) Implementation.--The head of each Federal agency responsible 
for environmental reviews or authorizations shall--

    (1) not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of 
 this Act--
        (A) compare existing Federal agency systems for 
 environmental reviews and authorizations with the data 
 standards published under 

section 3 and the minimum 
 functional requirements described in 

section 5

    (a)

    (2) and report findings from such comparison to the Council 
 on Environmental Quality;
        (B) assess whether existing Federal agency 
 technological capabilities are consistent with the data 
 standards published under 

section 3 and the minimum 
 functional requirements described in 

section 5

    (a)

    (2) ;
            (C) submit to the Council on Environmental Quality 
 a report that estimates the completion dates for 
 implementing the data standards published under 

section 3 and the minimum functional requirements described in 
 

section 5

    (a)

    (2) ; and
            (D) submit to the Council on Environmental Quality, 
 in consultation with the Council on Environmental 
 Quality, an implementation plan that--
            (i) describes how the Federal agency will 
 implement the data standards published under 
 

section 3 and the minimum functional 
 requirements described in 

section 5

    (a)

    (2) ; and
            (ii) describes how, to the extent the 
 Federal agency determines necessary to meet 
 relevant statutory requirements, the Federal 
 agency will adopt or implement the prototype 
 tools tested, designed, and built under 

section 4; and

    (2) not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of 
 this Act, begin implementing the data standards published under 
 

section 3 and the minimum functional requirements described in 
 

section 5

    (a)

    (2) .

    (b) Report.--Not less frequently than twice each year, the Chief 
Information Officer of each Federal agency, in consultation with the 
Chief Environmental Review and Permitting Officer of each Federal 
agency, shall submit to the Council on Environmental Quality and the 
Director of the Office of Management and Budget a report on the 
progress of the Federal agency towards meeting the requirements of 
subsection

    (a) .

SEC. 7. UNIFIED INTERAGENCY DATA SYSTEM.

    (a) In General.--

    (1) Unified interagency data system.--To the maximum extent 
 practicable, the Chair of the Council of Environmental Quality 
 and the head of each Federal agency responsible for 
 environmental reviews or authorizations shall iteratively 
 develop and maintain a unified interagency data system 
 consisting of interconnected Federal agency systems and shared 
 services for environmental reviews and authorizations.

    (2) Authorization portal.--
        (A) In general.--The shared services developed and 
 maintained under paragraph

    (1) shall include a common 
 interactive, digital, cloud-based authorization portal, 
 which shall--
            (i) be designed in a manner consistent 
 with--
            (I) the recommendations of the 
 Council on Environmental Quality 
 included in the study submitted 
 pursuant to 

section 110 of the National 
 Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 
 U.S.C. 4336d) titled ``Council on 
 Environmental Quality Report to 
 Congress on the Potential for Online 
 and Digital Technologies to Address 
 Delays in Reviews and Improve Public 
 Accessibility and Transparency under 42 
 U.S.C. 4332

    (2)
            (C) ''; and
            (II) the minimum functional 
 requirements described in 

section 5

    (a)

    (2) ;
            (ii) serve as a centralized platform for 
 tracking and displaying real-time data on 
 environmental reviews and authorizations made 
 available through application programming 
 interfaces or other reporting mechanisms from 
 Federal agency systems that are compliant with 
 the data standards and data architecture 
 described in this Act;
            (iii) include a mechanism for the 
 dissemination of relevant information (such as 
 a notice of intent for public comment, public 
 meetings, project statuses, or a notice of 
 intent to begin an environmental review) to 
 local communities, as applicable;
            (iv) allow a project sponsor to submit all 
 necessary documentation for environmental 
 reviews and authorizations in one unified and 
 secure portal;
            (v) support interactive, digital, and 
 cloud-based tools enabling applicants to edit 
 documents and collaborate with relevant Federal 
 agencies in real time;
            (vi) support visual features, including 
 video, animation, geographic information system 
 displays, interactive maps, and three-
 dimensional renderings;
            (vii) provide for the exchange of 
 information to and from Federal agency data 
 systems via an application programming 
 interface or another reporting mechanisms;
            (viii) allow for the submission of 
 geospatial data associated with project 
 location, footprint, and impact;
            (ix) support automatic documentation of 
 submission and process timelines; and
            (x) allow the following metrics to be 
 tracked over time--
            (I) estimates of achieved 
 efficiencies, such as reductions in the 
 time between receipt of applications 
 and final authorization decisions;
            (II) comparisons of authorization 
 timelines before and after the 
 implementation of this Act;
            (III) usage of the authorization 
 portal and other statistics from the 
 Digital Analytics Program;
            (IV) metrics on the number of 
 public comments received, responses 
 provided, and community meetings held;
            (V) the number of projects subject 
 to litigation based on authorization 
 deficiencies or inefficiencies;
            (VI) a list of Federal agencies 
 that are not yet fully compliant with 
 the data standards published under 
 

section 3 and the minimum functional 
 requirements described in 

section 5

    (a)

    (2) , along with their progress 
 toward compliance; and
            (VII) examples or repositories of 
 Federal agency-developed digital 
 workflows enabled by the implementation 
 of this Act, including visualizations 
 of data sharing, authorizations and 
 decision logic, and environmental 
 reviews.
        (B) Administrative support.--The Administrator of 
 General Services shall host the authorization portal as 
 a shared service for Congress, Federal agencies, and 
 the public.
            (C) Accessability.--The authorization portal shall 
 be accessible to Congress, Federal agencies, and the 
 public, with appropriate safeguards to protect 
 sensitive or classified information and information 
 restricted by user type as appropriate.
            (D) Public accessibility.--To the extent 
 practicable and consistent with other law, the 
 authorization portal shall provide public access to 
 non-sensitive data, including authorization timelines, 
 location, project type, environmental reviews, and 
 mitigation measures.
        (E) Congressional access and oversight.--
            (i) In general.--The authorization portal 
 shall provide Congress with direct access to 
 aggregated performance data and other analytics 
 to enable real-time oversight of Federal 
 agencies.
            (ii) Technical assistance.--The Council on 
 Environmental Quality shall provide to Congress 
 technical assistance upon request to ensure 
 effective use of the authorization portal for 
 oversight purposes.

    (3) Cybersecurity and compliance considerations.--The 
 authorization portal shall be designed to promote 
 interoperability, reduce redundancy, and ensure compliance and 
 coordination with other laws, including--
        (A) section 552a of title 5, United States Code 
 (commonly referred to as the Privacy Act of 1974), and 
 subchapter II of chapter 35 of title 44, United States 
 Code;
        (B) the Federal Risk and Authorization Management 
 Program established under 

section 3608 of title 44, 
 United States Code; and
            (C) the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security 
 Agency of the Department of Homeland Security, for a 
 case in which the project is in coordination with a 
 Federal agency with stringent security requirements.

    (b) Deadlines.--

    (1) Shared services pilot.--Not later than one year after 
 the date of enactment of this Act, the Council on Environmental 
 Quality shall oversee piloting of shared services for 
 environmental reviews and authorizations, including the 
 authorization portal under subsection

    (a)

    (2) .

    (2) Unified system development and implementation.--To the 
 maximum extent practicable, not later than December 1, 2027, 
 the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality shall develop 
 and implement the unified interagency data system required 
 under subsection

    (a)

    (1) .
            (c) Report.--Not less frequently than annually, the Chair of the 
Council on Environmental Quality, in consultation with the Federal 
Permitting Improvement Steering Council, the Chief Information Officers 
Council, and other relevant stakeholders and Federal agencies, shall 
submit to the Committee on Natural Resources of the House of 
Representatives and the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of 
the Senate a report on the Council on Environmental Quality's progress 
on developing a unified interagency data system under subsection

    (a) .
            (d) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be 
appropriated to carry out this section $1,000,000 for each of fiscal 
years 2026 through 2032, to remain available until expended.

SEC. 8. AUTHORITY TO ENTER INTO CONTRACTS.

 The Council on Environmental Quality may enter into contracts and 
other arrangements for analyses, services, and products with Federal 
agencies, private organizations, and businesses, and make such payments 
as determined necessary by the Council on Environmental Quality to 
carry out the provisions of this Act.

SEC. 9. CLARIFYING RULEMAKING AUTHORITY.

 Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize the Council on 
Environmental Quality or a Federal agency to impose additional 
regulatory processes or requirements beyond those expressly stipulated 
under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et 
seq.) or any other law.

SEC. 10. DEFINITIONS.

 In this Act:

    (1) Authorization.--The term ``authorization'' means any 
 license, permit, approval, finding, determination, or other 
 administrative decision issued by an agency and any interagency 
 consultation that is required or authorized under Federal law 
 in order to site, construct, reconstruct, or commence 
 operations of a project administered by a Federal agency.

    (2) Authorization data.--The term ``authorization data'' 
 means--
        (A) any data relevant for a Federal agency to--
            (i) determine the effect on the environment 
 of an action for which an authorization is 
 required by the Federal agency; and
            (ii) determine whether to issue such 
 authorization; and
        (B) any community input or public comment on such 
 determinations.

    (3) Data architecture.--The term ``data architecture'' 
 means the design and organization of data systems, including 
 frameworks for data storage, processing, and exchange.

    (4) Data standards.--The term ``data standards'' means 
 agreed-upon specifications for data formats, structures, and 
 definitions to ensure consistency and interoperability.

    (5) Environmental review.--The term ``environmental 
 review'' means any Federal agency procedures or processes for--
        (A) applying a categorical exclusion; or
        (B) preparing an environmental assessment, an 
 environmental impact statement, or another document 
 required under the National Environmental Policy Act of 
 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.).

    (6) Federal agency.--The term ``Federal agency'' has the 
 meaning given the term ``agency'' in 

section 551 of title 5, 
 United States Code.

    (7) Federal permitting improvement steering council.--The 
 term ``Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council'' has 
 the meaning given the term ``Council'' in 

section 41001 of the 
 FAST Act (42 U.S.C. 4370m).
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