President Obama has signed an executive order requiring agencies to make faster permitting and review decisions for large infrastructure projects.
The order, "Improving Performance of Federal Permitting and Review of Infrastructure Projects," creates an interagency steering committee chaired by OMB’s chief performance officer that is charged with developing a plan to coordinate, implement and institutionalize improvements to agency permitting.
It requires that nationally and regionally significant projects be tracked on a public "federal infrastructure projects dashboard" website and directs the chief performance officer to develop metrics, track implementation, and issue an annual report card on the results.
The order also establishes a timeline for achieving certain milestones, including:
April 30: Federal agencies must submit a list of significant infrastructure projects to be tracked on the public dashboard;
May 31: Agencies will finalize a federal plan for driving across the board performance improvements on infrastructure permitting and review decisions and post it on the dashboard;
July 31: Individual agencies will complete their own performance improvement plans, including metrics to track implementation, and post them on the dashboard;
August 31: Significant projects must be posted to the dashboard with complete timelines and schedules;
December 31: Agencies must submit the first of a series of biannual progress reports to the chief performance officer.
January 31, 2013: First progress report is due to the President.
