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America’s broken permitting system comes with a massive price tag, according to a new report from the NAM and the Foundation for American Innovation: $7.9 billion+ per year.

• As Congress resumes talks on permitting reform, the NAM’s new joint report with FAI puts a sharp point on the urgency of bipartisan, comprehensive permitting reform to strengthen America’s economic and national security.

The background: The new report, “America on Hold: How Permitting Delays Stall Manufacturing Progress,” draws from a recent joint survey of manufacturers conducted between Dec. 9, 2025, and Jan. 15, 2026, examining the types of projects companies are pursuing, the permits they most frequently require, where uncertainty and regulatory complexity create challenges and which reforms would have the greatest impact.  

The data: Manufacturers surveyed for the report made plain that permitting is delaying or even halting their investment plans.

• 50.8% say permitting concerns discourage investment in new or expanded capacity.
• 65.6% would increase U.S. investment if permitting timelines were shorter and more predictable.
• The most common permitted activities are facility expansions and equipment upgrades, not megaprojects.

The NAM says: “Manufacturers are investing across America, but permitting roadblocks are holding projects back,” said NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons.

• “It takes the U.S. up to 80% longer than our peer nations to move projects forward. Manufacturers want ribbon cuttings, not red tape—that means modernizing our laws to streamline regulations and eliminate duplicative reviews and a regulatory regime to support timely permitting and give manufacturers the certainty to invest, build and create jobs.”

Why now? Consolidated research demonstrating the full economic impact of the federal permitting system on manufacturing investment has been limited—until now. This is largely due to the absence of a centralized federal repository of permitting data, as well as the sheer number of laws and regulations governing permits.

• By pairing publicly available permitting data with original industry survey results, the NAM-FAI report addresses the current gap by providing one of the most comprehensive evaluations to date of the cost of the broken permitting system to manufacturers.  

How they did it: The analysis calculates impacts by multiplying federal permit counts over the past 10 years by total out-of-pocket and indirect costs of the permitting process.

NAM in the news: Axios’s Future of Energy newsletter covered the report an in exclusive this morning.

Read the whole thing: You can read the full report here.