5 Key Areas Technology Should and Should Not Be Used in Permitting

EPIC and the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) are collaborating on strategies and resources to help accelerate permitting innovation. Systems and digital tools play a central role throughout the permitting process—from project siting and design, to permit application steps and post-permit activities. More broadly, our teams are also working to support federal agencies in their efforts to innovate across a host of permitting policy, talent, data, and systems challenges. The North Star of this work is to empower leaders in and around government to plan, site, and build key ecological restoration and infrastructure projects faster, better, and at lower cost in the months and years ahead.

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What do we mean by technology?

In this context, we are primarily talking about digital technologies like:

• Data systems: the way data is collected, managed and shared

• Software + analytics: how information is displayed and insights are generated

That said, we are cognizant of the necessary enabling conditions that make technology both used and useful. While we aren’t addressing how to achieve these enabling conditions within the blog, they are inherent to how we recommend implementing technology proposed here. 

• Technology talent: the people and skillsets that can design and manage high-quality, accessible and interoperable technology solutions within government

• Funding: to design, build and maintain (or retire!) software solution

Technology can play an important role in speeding up environmental reviews and permitting by increasing transparency and accountability throughout the process and making it easier to avoid environmental impacts in the project design phase. And, as any good technologist knows, technology should not always be thrown at the problem. Simplifying policies and processes are critical steps—independent of and in collaboration with technology—to achieve these outcomes as well. Just as there are many different platforms for technology to support permitting, there are more than 75 policies and programs across states and federal governments to streamline permitting; some are connected to one another, but most are happening in isolation, siloed to specific bureaus or local/state programs. What’s more, as AI is seen as the golden ticket to fixing all of our problems, we wanted to take a step back and say, “Where are places that are ripe for technology?” and “Where do we need to lean in policy and process reform?”. 

Fortunately, we have two great examples where process improvements and technology integration have happened in parallel with incredible outcomes. 

1. In a recent report, Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality shared that their work on permit transparency, efficiency, and use of an online tracking system has “streamlined 50,000 regulatory requirements and saved Virginia citizens over $1.2 billion!” That is huge, and a model that many other states should be looking to adopt.

   [Bonus, check out the best marketing video for a government website we’ve seen to date.]

2. In Denmark, the government alongside a tech partner rapidly deployed an end-to-end digital solution from screening projects to environmental  impact statements on a standard platform. This work began by first mapping the permitting process and identifying pain points to then digitizing the workflow in less than six months. They then systematically developed AI decision-support tools based on cohesive environmental databases (that ingest public and private data!). Now a few years into the work, these improvements have shown the potential to reduce the time it takes to get approval on a permit by up to 25% and reduced developers’ cost of permitting by 10-30%. Overall, these improvements resulted in a more effective process—getting to a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ faster is better for everyone—especially when considering the need to move faster to address climate change and biodiversity loss. [Read more about their work here and here].

These are just two of several bright spots in permitting enhancements. As folks across technology companies, non-profits, academia, and government agencies evaluate intervention points where they can improve efficiency and effectiveness, we wanted to offer a bit of framing for where technology should be leveraged in NEPA + permitting, and where it shouldn’t. 

1. Tech CAN and SHOULD make it easier to foster public engagement and understand priorities, and IT SHOULD.

For example, in a short tech sprint, EPIC and other collaborators developed the Wetlands Impact Tracker - a dashboard of US Army Corps of Engineers wetland permits up for public comment, scraping data from pdf documents on multiple Corps websites. The new dashboard includes accessibility tools like searching by geographic location or by type of development, which surprisingly are functions not currently available on the Corps’ permitting websites. Creating this accessibility vastly improves opportunities for the public to understand where and what projects are proposed in their communities, for meaningful public engagement.

What’s possible - searchable, geographically relevant public notices (left)- vs what currently exists: a list of pdf’s that you have to open one by one to see if they are relevant to your area or are a project type of concern for a community (right)

2. Tech CAN and SHOULD provide more up-to-date environmental data to make it easier to avoid environmental impacts in the first place.

If done properly, a permit applicant can set their project up for early success by knowing they're coming to the table with regulators avoiding as much impact as possible. In order to do this, the project applicant needs good data. But the reality is, especially for interstate projects, you often don't have site-specific survey data at the planning stage. Most, if not all, of the applicant’s siting analysis may be based on GIS data—that’s not inherently a bad thing if the data is up-to-date. Yet GIS data is frequently  decades out of date, and critical elements—such as rights-of-way locations—are often undigitized, making them inaccessible. To improve siting outcomes, we need updated and digitized environmental data to support smarter, impact-avoiding design from the start.

Red lines show the rights of ways and blue polygons show the wetlands location. The GIF shows how developers. can use the GIS information to plan locations of projects.

For instance, the access roads shown in the example GIF would ideally follow a straight path (illustrated by dotted red lines). However, they divert to avoid wetlands (in blue), illustrating how crucial accurate environmental data like the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) is for project planning.

3. Tech CAN automate uploading applications to multiple platforms, but IT SHOULDN’T. POLICY/PROCESS should change.

As we previously wrote about, it’s all too common for applicants to have to submit the same (or slightly different) documents to multiple different platforms. Some have suggested developing a bot to help upload information. This is an inefficient technological ‘work-around’ that doesn’t address underlying issues. We should instead focus on:

1) Process reform to simplify things for project applicants and to support agencies in utilizing the information provided to another agency for their own needs (think: joint applications that cover multiple agencies and multiple permits), and

2) Creating shared data services to ensure agencies have the data about a permit collated in one place, rather than distributed across the many disparate agency databases that make it impossible to holistically evaluate a project. (Bonus: this is a necessary precursor to #4). 

4. Tech CAN and SHOULD make it easier to see all permits that are being evaluated, under development and issued in one place.

[Bonus this also supports #1 and 3!] There are dozens of different types of environmental reviews and permits depending on the type of project and variations of the permits at the local, state and federal level. Right now, it is difficult (read: potentially impossible) for:

1. Agencies to know what permits are being issued in different agencies, or the cumulative impacts of permitted projects. 

2. Public to know what projects are being permitted in their regions. 

3. Project developers to see what other permits are being issued similar to theirs. 

Luckily, with consistent data standards, this is a solvable problem with technology! CEQ also recognizes the importance of data standards, transparency, and accountability and have provided great guidance for how to make progress. Others have also built upon this guidance and spoken to the progress a comprehensive environmental review database would provide in developing permitting software that maximizes the impact of federal investments.

5. Tech CAN and SHOULD make it easier to navigate which rules, regulations, or case laws apply to a particular project or jurisdiction.

While simplifying rules is a key step, there is and will continue to be a role for AI and other emerging technologies to help stakeholders apply simplified rules and regulations to decision-making. For example, they can help:

1. Ensure lawmakers can easily reference existing policies and not create new ones that sow confusion.

2. Make it easier for project developers to know what rules apply to them.

3. Educate the public on what rights they have in permitting and NEPA processes.

Learn more about how agencies can achieve these outcomes and more concrete examples here.

While not permitting-specific, this resource from the US Forest Service is a great example of how a simple search function can be created to help folks navigate what resources or rules or apply to their region.

The intersection of technology and policy reform holds immense potential to transform environmental reviews and permitting processes for the better. By updating how permitting data is collected, managed and shared, creating accessible and transparent platforms for public engagement and accountability, and responsible application of AI, we can speed up permitting while preserving the integrity of the process. To that end, we know technology will not save us. We must prioritize policy and process simplifications. Examples from Virginia and Denmark show us what’s possible when innovation is paired with thoughtful governance—streamlined processes that save time, reduce costs, and ultimately accelerate progress on critical environmental and infrastructure projects. The path forward is clear: focus on technology where it adds the most value, reform processes to address root inefficiencies, and ensure the enabling conditions for success are in place. 

Do you agree with us on our framing of where technology should or shouldn’t be leveraged for permit efficiencies? What are we missing?

We are keen to deepen partnerships and work with folks that share similar goals - reach out if you’d like to collaborate!