This strategy functions like a fish ladder—it works within the current system and provides a bypass around barriers. Several approaches could make permitting move faster without overhauling the whole process or changing the rules. Ensuring sufficient regulatory staffing—while helpful—only changes the amount of time dedicated to permitting. We need to go a bit further:

1. Strong leadership and prioritization of timeliness create urgency and can make significant strides within the existing process

2. Interagency coordination can be crucial in avoiding duplicative and sometimes conflicting recommendations—building on models like the Federal Permitting Council, interagency task forces and multi-agency review teams can identify bottlenecks, share best practices, and promote transparency in decision-making

3. Deadlines and page limits can also have an impact when applied together with other things like senior staff involvement, problem-solving liaison roles, and batched or general permits

Continuing with our fish passage analogy, transformative change that restores the function, efficiency, and transparency in permitting is akin to removing the entire dam that blocks fish passage. Updating environmental reviews and permitting requires reimagining what the process needs to look like. A categorical exclusion can ‘remove the dam’ for no or low-impact restoration projects, and e-Permitting and AI tools can address multiple issues at once. E-permitting systems can replace outdated, paper-based processes, improving speed and accountability, and AI tools can draft routine environmental assessments, freeing up agency resources for more complex reviews.

Creating a regulatory process divorced from development and infrastructure could radically transform restoration project reviews and eliminate mismatches in requirements and burden of proof for these beneficial efforts. This idea could also include expediting permit reviews for proven applicants with demonstrable track records in delivering ecological restoration outcomes and environmental compliance. Changes like these would speed up permit issuance, enabling faster project implementation without compromising the integrity of environmental reviews. As Albert Einstein said, “You can’t solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that created it.”

If the first and second strategies are similar to constructing fish passages and removing dams, then this third strategy is about keeping nature intact at the start. At the core of the matter, we must address the shortcomings of the current regulatory system that have caused more habitat loss from development than we can restore. Upgrading from a “no net loss” to a “net gain” policy is one option. Another is providing and sharing data better so that impacts can be avoided in the first place.

Environmental review and permitting improvements must also address the broader regulatory framework that governs land use and development. We champion an integrated approach to prioritize restoration and conservation in all development projects, minimizing environmental impacts from the outset. Transitioning to a “net gain” policy, where environmental restoration is a guiding principle, would align public and private investments with long-term sustainability goals. Improving compensatory mitigation policies and incentivizing voluntary restoration efforts will create a more proactive regulatory environment, delivering better outcomes for both the environment and the economy.