House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee advances HR 3898, the 'Permit Act,' after hours of debate and dozens of failed amendments

The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on Oct. 12 approved, on a recorded committee vote, HR 3898, the Promoting Efficiency Review for Modern Infrastructure Today Act, known as the Permit Act, sending the measure to the House floor after hours of debate and dozens of proposed amendments.

Representative Collins, chair of the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute that the committee used as the base text. Collins described the measure as “a comprehensive package of common sense improvements to the Clean Water Act’s permitting processes,” saying the bill would “provide greater regulatory certainty” for infrastructure and energy projects and codify several prior agency practices.

Ranking Member Larson opposed the substitute and the manager’s amendment, arguing the changes “go far beyond promoting efficiency and predictability” and would “weaken the act by gutting the authority of the federal agencies” and undermine state and tribal ability to protect local waters. Larson said the bill would make it “much more difficult to keep water clean.”

Debate centered on several recurring themes: (1) clarifying the scope and timelines for section 401 water-quality certification and section 404 dredge-and-fill permitting under the Clean Water Act; (2) codifying exclusions to the definition of waters of the United States (WOTUS); (3) limiting judicial review windows and perceived “weaponization” of permitting by environmental litigation; (4) requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to consider whether required technologies are commercially available in the United States; (5) an exemption for aerially applied wildfire retardants from needing NPDES/NEPDES permits; and (6) commissions of…