Should it be Easier for New Development Projects to get Environmental Permits? (H.R. 348)

What is H.R. 348?

(Updated September 15, 2021)

The “RAPID” Act stands for Responsibly and Professionally Invigorating Development. If passed, this bill would streamline environmental permit approval process that federal agencies use for developers, builders, and designers by:

• Facilitating coordination between the federal agencies that are involved in environmental reviews; 
• Providing for concurrent reviews by agencies, rather than serial reviews;
• Removing duplicate review procedures by allowing the use of state-level environmental reviews — when the state has done an adequate review;
• Keeping federal agencies accountable to set time-tables for comment and objections;
• Creating a process for identifying the true scope, size, cost, impacts, and schedule of a project;
• Requiring a consolidated supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Environmental Assessment (EA) for prospective projects — and a fixed deadline by which these reports have to be completed. 

Argument in favor

Long environmental review procedures delay projects and result in lost job opportunities. This bill addresses those problems by streamlining the review process.

Argument opposed

This bill could lead to projects being approved too quickly. That may cause more harm to the environment and ultimately delay projects further along in the process.

Impact

Developers, builders, designers, and other contractors who have to get environmental permits for their projects, people who could use the jobs created by these projects, federal agencies that manage, coordinate, and approve or deny environmental permits, and the Council on Environmental Quality.

Cost of H.R. 348

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable. However, and estimate of a previous version of this bill done by the CBO in August 2013 found that implementation would cost $5 million over a five year period — assuming that funds were available. This cost would primarily come from federal agencies taking on additional work to meet the new deadline requirements proposed in this bill. The CBO also recognized the possibility of more costs from potential legal suits that could come from this bill. Legal fees would be financed with federal money.

Additional Info

In Depth:

A previous version of this bill was introduced into the 113th Congress, and even passed through the house 229 - 179. It died after never receiving consideration in the Senate.

An open letter of support from the Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) pitched the benefits of this bill, reasoning that: 

"Every year that major projects are stalled or cancelled because of a dysfunctional permitting process and a system that allows limitless challenges by opponents of development, millions of jobs are not created. For example, 351 stalled energy projects reviewed in one 2010 study (Project No Project) had a total economic value of over $1 trillion and represented 1.9 million American jobs not created. Project No Project showed that in the energy sector alone, one year of delay translates into millions of jobs not created."  

Critics of the bill have called out the new shorter deadlines could lead projects being approved without adequate review, and consequently, more delays later on. According to an article in The Hill critiquing a previous version of the bill, many Democrats saw the legislation as “another attack against environmental restrictions on public projects.”

Media:

Sponsoring Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) Press Release

CBO Cost Estimate (Previous Bill Version) 

The Hill (Previous Bill Version)

Wikipedia (Previous Bill Version) 

U.S. Chamber of Commerce (In Favor) 

ProgressiveReform.org (Opposed) 

Industrial Energy Consumers of America (In Favor)