Case Study: Leveraging Innovation to Achieve NEPA's Environmental Goals
Recent amendments to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), alongside related Biden Administration initiatives, strive to enhance federal permitting efficiency for development and restoration projects while maintaining environmental safeguards. NEPA’s fragmented approach to technology makes agencies less equipped to address the prevailing challenges encountered by conservation and restoration initiatives—ranging from bureaucratic delays to disparate IT systems. To achieve NEPA’s objectives, federal agencies need a new, unified approach to technology capable of modernizing federal permitting and related processes. To build momentum, we recommend:
Funding a continually updated, user-friendly public NEPA database.
Initiating interagency pilot programs to coordinate permitting decisions using the same data.
Leveraging human centered design (HCD) processes focused on the federal agencies and public access to information.
Developing new decision support tools to focus on the most crucial decisions and their effectiveness.
Prioritizing digital applications with easy-to-use forms.
Like this idea and want to get in touch? Contact Reed Van Beveren at reed@policyinnovation.org.
