Permitting Reform

Unclear timelines, overlapping statutes and prolonged litigation are delaying critical energy and manufacturing projects. NAM’s reforms modernize reviews, tighten litigation rules and add predictability so investments can move forward.

NAM Q2 2024 and Q4 2024 Manufacturers’ Outlook Surveys

1. Reform the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA): Streamline reviews and require timely, definitive decisions to prevent years of uncertainty for projects.
2. Expedite judicial review: Establish a workable statute of limitations, limit challenges to directly affected stakeholders who provided substantive input, and define clear limits on when courts may vacate agency actions.
3. Codify Supreme Court precedent on NEPA scope: Focus reviews on proximate, project‑specific impacts—not speculative or distant effects.
4. Clarify federal action triggers: Receiving federal financial support should not automatically trigger NEPA. Incentives should accelerate, not stall, projects.
5. Expand categorical exclusions and share them across agencies: Use Section 109 authority under the Fiscal Responsibility Act to increase exclusions and allow interagency transferability for common, low‑impact activities.
6. Create and enforce deadlines: Set statutory timelines for environmental reviews to eliminate open‑ended processes and improve planning certainty.
7. Streamline the Clean Water Act: Clarify timelines, roles and permitting scope; expand general permits to reduce duplicative and lengthy reviews.
8. Modernize the Clean Air Act: Ensure workable PM2.5 and ozone standards and realistic review cycles; allow regional emissions‑credit trading and discount international emissions when setting compliance burdens.
9. Provide regulatory certainty and a lead agency: Coordinate across agencies, designate a lead agency for major projects and prevent conflicting guidance that slows energy and AI‑related development.
10. Secure critical materials and modernize infrastructure: Align DOE and DOI critical lists to unlock domestic mining/processing, modernize pipeline permitting and improve interconnection so electrons get where they’re needed.

A Reliable, Resilient and Affordable Grid

• Construct and interconnect more T&D lines: Expand capacity with fair cost allocation to avoid stranded assets and rising prices.
• Improve and deploy battery storage: Secure domestic supply chains and simplify grid integration to enhance balance and cut costs.
• Boost domestic grid components and supply chains: Invest in transformers and other essentials; counter low‑quality imports and cybersecurity risks.

AI Innovation and Leadership

Alongside energy and grid modernization, policymakers should adopt an agile, risk‑based framework for AI that supports innovation, reduces redundant regulation and clarifies expectations for transparency and accountability.

• Review existing federal laws and regulations: Identify—and fix—rules that inhibit AI development or deployment. Only add AI‑specific rules when existing frameworks truly fall short.
• Regulate use, not the tool: Take a context‑specific, risk‑based approach that focuses on how AI is used in manufacturing rather than on the underlying technology.
• Right‑size compliance: Favor workable, balanced rules that rely on industry standards and self‑assessments over audit‑heavy regimes to avoid chilling innovation.
• Transparency best practices: Task NIST with guidance that helps AI deployers understand model development, training data and performance so they can meet risk‑based obligations.
• Preserve a level playing field: Ensure continued access to both open‑source/open‑weights and proprietary models so manufacturers of all sizes can compete.
• Coordinate policy across jurisdictions: With 40 states enacting 110+ AI laws, align federal and state approaches and ensure lawmakers understand real manufacturing use‑cases.