Early stakeholder engagement and clear communication about a project’s value to the local community are crucial for seeing it through to completion, Permitting Council Executive Director Emily Domenech told Manufacturing Dive.
These steps will help ensure that stakeholders’ concerns are heard and addressed early in the process, while also showing that the community as well as the company stands to benefit, she said.
The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) was established in 2015 by Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, or Fast-41, to make the federal environmental review and authorization process for infrastructure projects more transparent and predictable.
Among other things, the 16-member Permitting Council creates public timetables and structures for federal permitting reviews; convenes agencies to improve collaboration, coordinate processes and increase permitting efficiencies; and helps avoid permitting delays and resulting cost increases.
The council doesn’t issue permits or set policy, but it does act as a project manager to help manufacturers, mining companies and other firms obtain environmental permits while adhering to environmental laws and regulations governing their projects, Domenech said. It currently manages a portfolio of nearly $75 billion in large-scale infrastructure projects across 19 sectors ranging from manufacturing to transportation.
Before being appointed to head the Permitting Council by President Donald Trump, Domenech served as senior vice president at Boundary Stone Partners, as well as senior policy advisor to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
She recently spoke with Manufacturing Dive about the Permitting Council’s role, some of its recent successes in expediting infrastructure projects and common pitfalls that can prolong the permitting process or result in a denial.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
MANUFACTURING DIVE: What sorts of infrastructure projects does the Permitting Council manage?
EMIILY DOMENECH: The Fast Act includes 19 different sectors, so that's everything from manufacturing to energy production, mining, linear infrastructure like pipelines transmission, data centers and AI-related infrastructure, water projects and broadband. Basically, every type of large infrastructure that you can think of is eligible for Fast-41, outside of a few narrow exceptions for things that are funded by the federal government.
So if you are funded by the Department of Transportation or the Water Resources Development Act for the U.S. Army Corps, those projects are not eligible. But if you are in one of our 19 sectors, you trigger federal permitting and you have an investment of at least $200 million, then you qualify to be what's called a covered project under Fast-41. Large critical infrastructure projects get what I would describe as our “full service” support and have a statutorily required structure for how we support them.
We also have what is called our Transparency Dashboard, which features projects that trigger federal permitting and are selected at the discretion of the executive director. It's where you'll see a lot of our exploration work for mining — much smaller-scale projects, but ones that still require federal permitting.
We really try to take the mystery out of permitting with a kickoff meeting and coordination at the beginning, so that a developer knows what's expected of them and has a predictable timeline. Half the things we work out are things where a developer is maybe not spending what they should be, and they need a little reminder of what's required. So project manager really is the right fit for what we do.
Can you further explain the difference between a covered project and a transparency project?
A covered project comes with a very clearly outlined statutory system for supporting the project. There's a statutorily required period of reviews, and we have 14 days to say if you qualify for the program. We have 60 days to identify all of the relevant federal agencies, convene them with the project sponsor, hold a kickoff meeting, develop your permitting timetable and post that timetable on the permitting dashboard.
We then have compliance measures that come with a covered project that are included in that process. So, if a federal agency misses one of the milestones that's on that timetable we develop in that kickoff meeting, then they have to do pretty irritating reporting to Congress on why they missed it, and explain why and when they're going to reschedule that milestone and how they're going to still complete the project on time.
For a transparency project, it's a much more ad hoc process. The statute requires us to evaluate a project and then post a... comprehensive permitting timetable for the project within 14 days, but it doesn't come with the mandatory kickoff meeting with the project sponsor. We still do a relatively informal meeting for it, but the project sponsor doesn't quite get the same seat at the table for a transparency project. And there isn't the reporting to Congress that's required for a covered project if a milestone is missed.
So, transparency projects truthfully require a good bit more work from our side. We have to be much more engaged with the agencies to ensure that they stick to the timetable they developed in the beginning. There's a lot of benefits to being a covered project, but we have accomplished a lot just by using the transparency function of the dashboard to sort of name and shame folks to do their jobs on time. It's been a very effective tool for us. Of the 22 projects that we finished in the first year of the Trump administration, 17 of those projects were mining projects that came through the transparency dashboard.
What would you say are the two or three most important project successes the Permitting Council has had?
The Alaska LNG pipeline is an example of a deeply complex permitting project that first completed permitting during the first Trump administration. It was litigated under the Biden administration and then returned to Fast-41 to be relisted to do their supplemental environmental assessment or environmental impact statement work following litigation. We finished that project in December of last year, and it really did require a consistent coordinating function by the Permitting Council. We kept staff working through the government shutdown in the fall of 2025 to keep that project moving. I would consider it to be one of our more significant successes.
I'd also say that using the transparency dashboard at all is a huge success for the council. That authority has existed since the [Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021] was passed, and nobody bothered to use it in the four years until I got here. So, we have leveraged that really well to support the mining sector. We've taken our mining portfolio from one project to 57 in a little over a year, so it's a huge growth in that portfolio. The mining sector as a whole is where I would say we've shown the value of our process and how it can move things forward.
And then... we've got a number of tribal broadband projects that were really complicated and difficult. There also was a broadband project in Alaska that we just finished about a month ago that took a lot of engagement across the board. Alaska is always a really complicated place to do business.
It's hard to pick a couple, because I would say we've spent so much effort growing our portfolio. We've added over 70 projects to the dashboard under this administration, and a lot of those are slated to get finished with permitting between now and the end of the year or in the first half of 2027. Our success rate is really going to turn on whether we can complete these projects on time, not just keep on moving.
Looking ahead, what are some of the most important projects you expect to be involved with?
I mentioned that during our first year, we really focused on the mining sector. There's no point in talking about the high-end manufacturing supply chain for semiconductors if you can't source your raw materials from somewhere that's either here or at one of our allies. I think the second year is really a turn to focus on the processing for those critical minerals that we're hoping to produce in this country. Again, it doesn't do us any good to open 10 new mines in America if we have to ship the stuff to China to be processed.
So, we listed the Project Crucible zinc project in Tennessee a little over a month and a half ago. We'll have the permitting timetable for that project finished in a matter of weeks. I think that's going to be the first of many. We've had a lot of discussions with folks looking to build processing and mineral manufacturing facilities here in the United States, and I hope to see a lot of growth in that sector, because it is the next step. We're going to be serious about maintaining that supply chain.
What are some of the most common mistakes that you see manufacturers in particular make that delay the permitting process?
I really think the biggest delay for permitting is bureaucratic malaise on the part of both agencies and companies — that sort of “here's how we've always done it” mentality, when maybe the law doesn't actually say that. The example I usually use is the assumption that we should always default to an environmental impact statement for every project, because somehow doing a longer review is going to make you more litigation proof. There is not really any evidence that that is true. We are much more focused on saying, “Let's look at the appropriate level of environmental review under the law and do that.” Sometimes it's an EIS, but a lot of times it's an environmental assessment. We should not be like, “We've always done it this way, and so my consultants are telling me we should do it this way again.”
The other mistake I think that people make is they come in the door saying, “I've already done all my work, my permit's completely done, here's a completed application,” before they've even had a single conversation with their potential regulator. I tend to think that doesn't work. I'll use the Army Corps as an example, because water permits are one that manufacturers often encounter. Go talk to the Army Corps field office or the regional offices early and often. Tell them about your project, make sure they know you, make sure they know what you're working on. They can give you good advice to make sure you don't waste time and resources in the pre-application phases that you could dedicate towards your final application. Take advantage of the staff that are there.
What should companies do when it comes to community engagement regarding a project?
I think it depends on what community you're in, what impact that sort of investment has made in that community in the past, and how they feel about the investment you want to make. We often advise people to talk to their local politicians, governor's offices, local leadership, because oftentimes they will know about a historical fear or concern or priority for that community that we might not know at the federal level.
You really should talk to everybody. I think that's what engagement is. You don't get to pick and choose who you talk to, and if you do, it probably won't serve you well. Frequent community engagement and doing it early, just like when you engage with your permit writers, is a valuable tool, showing that you're really going to be an asset to this community.
