THE LATEST: The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which includes the most impactful federal environmental review and permitting reforms in over 40 years, helps address the industry’s workforce shortages, and averts a catastrophic national credit default.

WHAT TO DO: It takes less than 30 seconds to send our prewritten message telling your U.S. senators to support federal environmental review and permitting reform and to pass the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

WHY IT MATTERS: Our nation faces many challenges that require the delivery of timely infrastructure projects to help address them. But waiting years just for a federal environmental review or permitting decision, let alone the beginning of construction, needlessly delays these projects.

To this point, environmental review documents required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) can take agencies years and hundreds—if not thousands—of pages to complete. Even then, these documents often face years- or decades-long lawsuits, as NEPA is the most frequently litigated federal environmental statute.

OUR POSITION: The Fiscal Responsibility Act includes a host of long-sought, AGC-backed reforms to the federal environmental review and permitting process, without jeopardizing environmental protections, by amending NEPA to:

• Curtail frivolous lawsuits to delay or cancel projects
• Claw back the over expansive reach of federal environmental review to its intended purpose
• Extend One Federal Decision policies to all construction projects
• Enable agencies to adopt other agencies’ categorical exclusions from NEPA

THE DETAILS: Read more about AGC’s position in our letter to House leaders.

In addition to the environmental review reforms, the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s new work requirements for some individuals receiving federal assistance may bring more people back into the workforce. It is no secret that pandemic-era measures that paid people not to work exacerbated workforce shortages in virtually every sector of the economy. These shortages undermined economic growth, including in construction. The new measures included in the bill could help lead some people to high-paying careers in professions like construction.

Lastly, passage of the bill will allow the U.S. government to meet its immediate obligations, take important steps to reduce its future obligations, and will make necessary reforms to improve the economy.