The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) oversees the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA laws help protect the environment during federal actions and decisions, requiring that federal agencies evaluate the environmental impact of what they plan to do. However, the research and findings created during such evaluations often take years and sometimes cost millions of dollars. They’re also difficult to leverage again for similar projects.

In 2023, 18F collaborated with CEQ to look for ways to “improve efficiency and effectiveness of the permitting process.” The recommendations and feasibility study that we submitted went to Congress, and led to subsequent work on shared data standards and the Permitting Council.

In 2024, 18F was collaborating with CEQ as well as other federal agency partners like the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Energy, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. We were working on a shared data standard that would make NEPA reports and decisions easier to share across agencies. We were also helping to streamline the permitting process, a stated priority of the second Trump administration. Before 18F was eliminated, we were about to interview NEPA staff across agencies to discover how they created and managed reports, as well as prototyping a tool to help fast track permitting decisions across agencies. Both efforts would have strongly encouraged adoption of the shared data standard.

After 18F was eliminated, we saw our work cited in a new executive order. A new team was created to take over work we had already been doing, taking those people away from their other in-progress work and forcing CEQ to invest time and energy to bring them up to speed.