E-NEPA Report to Congress

As directed by Congress in section 110 of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued a Report to Congress on the Potential for Online and Digital Technologies to Address Delays in Reviews and Improve Public Accessibility and Transparency. The report evaluates the potential for technology to improve environmental review and permitting processes.

CEQ’s Report to Congress on the Potential for Online and Digital Technologies to Address Delays in Reviews and Improve Public Accessibility and Transparency .

In the report, CEQ provides recommendations on how to improve permitting technology to enable interoperable agency systems (systems that work together and share information with one another) and to improve the user experience of permitting technology systems for agency NEPA practitioners, project applicants, and the public. CEQ’s report recommends:

• Creating common standards for data associated with NEPA processes and documents;
• Developing a common model for how to structure data and design agency systems that will enable sharing of information;
• Supporting agency adoption of shared NEPA tools through iterative development of new and existing software applications; and
• Automating the exchange of data among agency systems to provide a unified experience.

The report finds that increasing the interoperability of systems and the use of shared data are the most critical steps in achieving a unified experience. Successful development and implementation of this approach would improve the permitting process by helping agencies more efficiently track and manage project reviews, share data and co-edit documents with other agencies, and communicate with applicants and the public.

To inform preparation of this report, CEQ met with technology experts inside and outside of the Federal Government, and participated in dozens of demonstrations of software systems to analyze the technology landscape for environmental review and permitting processes. In October 2023, CEQ hosted the first Environmental Permitting Technology and Data Summit with agency officials and professionals from the environmental and information technology sectors to discuss how software and other technology and data tools can deliver more effective and efficient environmental reviews.

Additional references:

Appendix 4 to CEQ's E-NEPA Report to Congress: 18F Path Analysis – Expediting permitting within the current digital landscape .

Appendix 5 to CEQ’s E-NEPA Report to Congress: 18F Feasibility Study – Feasibility of a cross-agency permitting tool .