The Permitting Innovation Hub

Permitting processes don’t have to be slow. We work to make it easier, faster, and more predictable to get to a permitting decision.

About the Permitting Innovation Hub

EPIC’s Permitting Innovation Hub brings together a unique blend of experts with an incredible track record of making permitting better, fairer, and faster for people and the planet. We offer a critical voice in the permitting debate: environmentalists who believe reform is needed. We combine genuine credibility in the environmental community with strong technical and technology policy expertise in speeding up permitting without compromising on environmental progress.

The hub represents a new one-stop shop for EPIC’s permitting innovation resources, spanning restoration, technology, energy, and infrastructure policy. This includes cutting-edge policy analysis, case studies, tools for practitioners, and recommendations for policymakers.

We envision a future where faster permitting advances economic, social, and environmental progress, while still serving as a check on bad decision making, and short-term and narrow minded project planning.

Our Goals

  • Create or Identify Good Ideas

    We're advancing evidence-backed ideas for making permitting better, faster, and fairer. Reforms can deliver both speed and environmental progress.

  • Tech Design and Advocacy

    Our team has incredible expertise in designing and building tech solutions that improve government decision-making, and we advocate for others’ solutions too.

  • Make Progress, Not Partisanship

    At all levels of government, we are creating the circumstances for progress, working across ideological divides to make permitting better.

  • Implement

    We work with elected officials, practitioners, and regulators to fundamentally change the way America does permitting.

Our Initiatives

Permitting happens across a half-dozen federal laws and in every state - when the problem is this complex, we can’t pursue a one size fits all solution.

  • Federal Permitting Reform

    Permitting reform is more bipartisan than ever in Washington. The problems are complex enough that we need that momentum to continue for many years to come. From NEPA to the ESA , to the Clean Water Act and beyond, EPIC is here with analysis and policy recommendations.

    Coming Soon

  • State Permitting Innovation

    The vast majority of permits in the United States—especially for energy, housing, and land use—are issued at the state and local levels. EPIC is seeking to document some of the most effective reforms we are seeing states implement. We also try to be available to any state that wants help in making more progress to improve permitting.

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  • Technology for Better Permitting

    Permitting should be getting easier, not harder and EPIC’s Tech team is leveraging our expertise to identify the technological, AI, and data solutions all parties need to make better permitting decisions. Startups also deserve more opportunity to show government how tech can benefit decision-making.

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  • Smarter Permitting for Ecological Restoration

    Permits can take years to obtain, even for the most ecologically beneficial projects. We're missing out on significant restoration opportunities to address climate change and biodiversity loss. EPIC is seeking to reduce permitting approval times to under 1 year for complex, novel projects and 60-90 days for well-known techniques.

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Our Projects

Interested in connecting with our team?

Contact Us

What’s New

Featured
Permitting Digitalization in Virginia

Virginia stands out from other states in its permitting reform efforts because it has really nailed transparent permitting, and in doing so, significantly cut down the processing time for most state permits.

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4 Pillars for Permitting Innovation

The permitting reform space is growing fast, and there are clearly different philosophies for why this work is important, what values should guide us in identifying solutions, whether reform is even needed, and how we build a large enough coalition to make meaningful changes at all levels of government.

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Thoughts on the ESA Amendments Act of 2025
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Predicting DOGE AI Deregulatory Tool Recommendations
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Updates to our Permitting Tools Inventory
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Comment Letter: Nationwide Permit Reissuance

Comments on “Proposal To Reissue and Modify Nationwide Permits” (COE-2025-0002)

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How effective governance can streamline restoration efforts—Louisiana CPRA Case Study
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RIBITS User Survey Reveals Desire for Data Reliability and Modernization
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NEPA, CEQA and the winds of change
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A Look At CEQ’s New CE Explorer

On June 5th, the CEQ’s Permitting Innovation Center released their first prototype experiment, the Categorical Exclusion Explorer. The Explorer is the first time a collection of cross-agency Categorical Exclusions (CEs) has been transformed into data for experimentation. This is still in the experimental stage, and we applaud the Permitting Innovation Center for releasing early-stage products and experiments. Early and iterative releases are ideal for gathering feedback and improving future releases.

We’ve discussed using existing environmental review data management and sharing as an area ripe for experimentation and innovation.

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New Interactive Tools and Data to Explore Mitigation Bank Timelines
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California’s restoration bottleneck deepens biodiversity debt
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NextGov: Trump administration debuts permitting modernization plan, even as staff cuts could jeopardize it
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First Look at CEQ’s Permitting Technology Action Plan

This blog is a first look at the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) Permitting Technology Action Plan, which aims to modernize federal permitting processes. The plan includes data standards for interoperability between agencies, service delivery standards for workflow automation and digital documents, and a maturity model for agencies to gauge their progress. Key highlights include implementing data standards, improving document management, and using GitHub for open collaboration. We note the potential for multi-agency procurement and prize competitions and outline potential impacts for agencies, applicants, and vendors. We express cautious optimism due to the plan's technical depth, interoperability focus, and use of existing work but also note concerns about talent gaps and the aggressive initial 90-day implementation timeline.

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We need to simplify environmental permits to boost their impact
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