Trump Tax Law’s Permit Fee Seen as Speeding Environment Reviews

There’s precedent for the expedited permitting fee tucked into the tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed last week—but also uncertainty about whether it will actually work as intended, former federal officials say.

The law establishes rules that let developers pay a fee to the Council on Environmental Quality to get an environmental assessment within 180 days or an environmental impact statement within one year. The fee is equivalent to 125% of the EA or EIS expected costs.

The new rules could hand a major win to well-heeled developers who see a benefit in paying a few extra million dollars, at most, for the guarantee of a permit decision by a certain date. Projects such as hard rock mines and oil and gas pipelines tend to be backed by multiple investors, who often lose patience and pull their money out if the permitting process drags on indefinitely.

Trump hinted at the fee structure in a Dec.10 Truth Social post, saying any person or company investing at least $1billion in the US would “receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals.”

It’s the administration’s latest effort to get projects permitted and built at lightning speed. Already the White House has deleted longstanding rules under the National Environmental Policy Act, carved out exemptions from the permitting process, and pushed for the broader use of categorical exclusions.

But the kinds of complex projects likely to take advantage of the change are often the same ones that pose the greatest risks to the air, water, and land, environmentalists say—meaning, if anything, they should be held to even more scrutiny.

“As drafted, the provision lays bare a Republican ‘permit reform’ agenda solely focused on advancing private industry profit over the public interest,” said Stephen Schima, senior legislative counsel at Earthjustice.

Still, it’s not unusual for government agencies to offer expedited processing for those willing and able to pay, said Marcella Burke, former deputy solicitor for energy and natural resources at the Interior Department during the first Trump administration.

The government already does that for passport applications, Freedom of Information Act requests, patent and trademark reviews, and Green Cards and work permits, Burke said.

Accelerated Timeline

Eric Beightel, who led the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council under President Joe Biden, agreed that there’s nothing new about the concept of paying the federal government for performance.

For example, he cited the Department of Transportation and Army Corps of Engineers’ “liaison” authority to steer applicant funds toward staffing costs for permit reviews. That type of arrangement “makes sense,” in Beightel’s view.

The fee option also doesn’t change the substantive standards or environmental protections required in a review, said Mark Miller, director of the Pacific Legal Foundation’s environmental and natural resources practice.

“It simply accelerates the timeline for completing the same analysis,” Miller said. “We all know that federal agencies often face staffing and budget limitations that delay reviews. Allowing sponsors to fund additional staff, contractors, or technical support for their project’s review helps overcome these bottlenecks.”

The new fee also echoes what’s being done in states like Florida, which allow private inspectors and third-party reviewers to approve building permits and conduct inspections in some cases, Miller said.

“It relieves pressure on overburdened public staff, shifts cost burden from taxpayers to applicants, and reduces the opportunity for arbitrary delay or abuse of process,” he said. “If it’s working in the states—the laboratories of democracy—then it makes sense for the federal government to adopt the same approach in the NEPA context.”

Questions Linger

But the fee language doesn’t address how CEQ will use the money, or why the law sends funds to CEQ at all, given the Trump administration’s efforts to sideline the agency and curtail its oversight of the NEPA process, Beightel said.

“As written, there is nothing that requires CEQ to redistribute the funds collected to the agencies, who are required to now cut timelines in half from the already shortened timelines established by the Fiscal Responsibility Act,” Beightel said, referring to the 2023 debt limit law that included permitting changes.

Because of those unresolved questions, Beightel said he struggled to see how the fees will actually speed up permitting.

Burke sees it differently, saying she expects the permitting process to be dramatically accelerated.

Moreover, the need for a fee structure only highlights the frustrating reality of how bloated the permitting regime has grown, said Burke, now founding partner of Burke Law Group PLLC.

“Taxpayers should not have to pay a premium for the services government owes us,” she said. “These fees leave one wondering what prevents the government from being efficient without the expedited fees.”

Separately, some counties fear that the changes could preempt their own permitting or zoning authority by “limiting or completely removing opportunities for counties to engage with project sponsors and the agency or agencies issuing the NEPA permit, simply as a result of agency staff working to meet expedited deadlines,” said Mark Ritacco, chief government affairs officer at the National Association of Counties.

Earthjustice’s Schima, who has long been sharply critical of Republican efforts to scale back NEPA rules, said he was relieved the fee language wasn’t stronger.

The version of the bill that passed the House contained language that let developers pay a fee not only for faster reviews, but also to avoid judicial or administrative review of the quality of those reviews. The Senate Parliamentarian ruled against that language being included.