President Donald Trump’s new permitting director said she hopes Congress can eliminate her job by passing meaningful reform.
Last week, the White House named former congressional staffer Emily Domenech to head the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, more simply known as the Permitting Council.
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The 16-person council was established during the second Obama administration through the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act to improve transparency and predictability for certain infrastructure projects making their way through the federal permitting process.
As required by the National Environmental Policy Act, most of these projects are required to secure federal permits and environmental reviews from numerous agencies before they can begin construction — a process that can take years thanks to legal challenges and bureaucratic red tape.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Domenech said the Permitting Council acts as a “Sherpa” to help large projects through the process in a timely manner, by anticipating various problems and ensuring agencies are able to stick to agreed-upon timelines for reviews.
Not all energy infrastructure and manufacturing projects are eligible for this expedited process. To qualify, they must meet a $200 million investment threshold.
The council is then able to establish a timeline for the project developer and figure out how many and which permits they will need, as well as what milestones the developer and federal agencies will need to hit for the project to break ground in, ideally, a matter of months instead of years.
Under this process, the council has been able to move 25% faster than the traditional federal permitting process since 2021, when the agency was made a permanent federal agency through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
But in a perfect world, Domenech said, the council should not have to exist.
“I joke a lot that I took this job knowing that I would love to put the Permitting Council out of business, because we fix federal permitting for everyone and we don’t need it,” Domenech told the Washington Examiner.
She said the council works well because of its transparency and its ability to connect directly with agency leads on reviews required for each project.
“We really serve as that Sherpa through the whole federal process to ensure that a project developer can get to groundbreaking,” Domenech said.
Top priorities
Until Congress is able to pass meaningful permitting reform into law, Domenech plans to utilize the council’s authority to help break ground on as many projects as it can during the second Trump administration.
The council manages roughly 19 different categories of projects, including energy production, critical mineral mining, pipelines, waterways, and transmission.
Domenech said manufacturing, within and outside the energy sector, will be a top priority for the council under her leadership, including helping expedite artificial intelligence data centers, quantum computing facilities, and much more.
As of Friday, the council has 38 “covered” projects under its purview that meet the requirements established by the FAST Act. It also manages a separate set of 24 projects through its transparency program, many of which are related to critical minerals mining but might not meet all the requirements to be considered “covered.”
Potential roadblocks
Domenech said she hopes to see that number grow exponentially within the next two years, but she is expecting to face hurdles brought on by decades-old environmental laws that she said are “overdue for updating.”
“They don’t really work with today’s environment, and the regulatory process that has been attached to those laws has grown far beyond what I think Congress intended when they were first passed,” she said.
Drew Bond, chairman and CEO of public policy nonprofit C3 Solutions, said that the council will likely face pushback from environmental groups that he described as being “anti-growth” and anti-development.”
Bond warned that Domenech could face legal challenges as she looks to increase the number of projects in the council’s portfolio.
“There’s a whole host of environmental lawyers and lobbyists that make plenty of money off of the complexity of these processes,” Bond told the Washington Examiner.
Bipartisan engagement
Before joining the Trump administration, Domenech worked as a senior policy adviser to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. She worked closely on permitting and energy policy and served as the lead negotiator on NEPA reforms enacted by the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.
Given her background, Domenech’s appointment has been well received by industry and policy leaders across the aisle.
In a statement provided to the Washington Examiner, Eric Beightel, the permitting council director under former President Joe Biden, said he was pleased with the president’s choice.
“The Permitting Council is still a young agency with a broad and ambitious mission and Emily is well qualified to lead the Council through a dynamic time for infrastructure development,” Beightel said.
“I’m hopeful that the foundation we laid will be a strong starting point for her to put her mark on the agency and provide industry with the transparency, predictability, and accountability that is so critical to delivering the infrastructure needed to grow our economy,” he added.
Domenech said she believes there is bipartisan support for getting permitting done faster in the U.S., particularly as concerns grow over the speed at which China and other adversaries are ramping up their own industries.
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She told the Washington Examiner that the administration needs to use all the tools at its disposal, including the council, to compete with China.
“We’re going to have our hands full meeting with product developers, but I very much want to continue to engage with the Hill and look for that lasting, bipartisan permitting reform that I think has eluded us for too long,” Domenech said.