Lost in the congressional narrative is an effort that could have as much impact on our economy as any of the other hot-button issues: permitting reform. The Full Responsibility and Expedited Enforcement (FREE) Act would kick-start some long-needed review of permitting that is regulated by federal agencies. The FREE Act would require all agencies to review permitting under their authority and, where possible, convert the process to what is called permit-by-rule (PBR).
A new permitting structure may sound like shifting one roll of bureaucratic red tape for another. But it is anything but that. Rather, PBR permitting would remove most of the red tape that holds up projects for years or even decades.
Indeed, anyone who has applied for a permit knows what a pain it is. Your application has to prove that all the various required compliance demands are satisfied—even if the demands are arbitrary. Then, once you submit the application, you have to hope and pray that the bureaucrat sitting behind the desk that the application lands on is both friendly to your request and reviews it in a timely manner.
The process sometimes—or often—involves lengthy delays or requires costly adjustments before an approval can be accomplished. To make matters worse, because conventional permitting requires approval before the project can commence, there is considerable wasted time.
All of these headaches go away with PBR. Under that system of permitting, the government must explicitly state the standards that must be complied with for a project to qualify. All that the stakeholder must do is certify—i.e., state under oath that it complies with the standards—that the demands have been met. After a short waiting period of 30 days or so, the project is considered approved automatically unless the government agency finds some fault in the certifications.
These pre-set standards are nothing new. Rather, they are merely applied differently. Instead of giving bureaucrats ammo to hold up projects, they take the same compliance demands, but move them to the front. They are self-enforced and accounted for before the government ever enters the picture.
One might wonder: how then would government ensure that projects comply with existing regulations? The answer is enforcement actions. Agencies would shift their focus from being a gatekeeper—bottlenecking all the qualified applicants from moving forward—to an enforcer that focuses only on the bad actors. The good actors can operate with considerably more freedom while the government expends far less resources, given that it now only focuses on the few rather than the many.
There is also very little risk involved. Very few companies would spend millions of dollars on building a structure, only to have the agency shut them down mid-project. Stakeholders are still strongly incentivized to maintain compliance because failing to do so would be financial ruin.
Additionally, PBR strikes a balance between unnecessary bureaucracy and preserving accountability. Some types of projects—like those that have an impact on the environment—still demand some level of government oversight and standard creation. But it also removes the bureaucratic slog that holds so many projects back.
There are really no losers under PBR. Even the American people benefit. Greenlighting more projects means more jobs, more productivity, and increased economic output.
Put plainly, PBR is the antithesis of big government. It shrinks government considerably by getting out of the way of companies that are ready and able to grow our economy. It creates lower costs for Americans, who would benefit from lower compliance burdens and an increased supply of goods and materials.
Those who campaign against big government should not stand in the way of shrinking it. PBR replaces big government with the freedom to build, invest, and grow.
Curtis Schube is the Executive Director of Council to Modernize Governance, a think tank committed to making the administration of government more efficient, representative, and restrained. He is formerly a constitutional and administrative law attorney.