Permitting Council Names Georgette A. Furukawa Director of Public Engagement
Contact Information
Permitting Council Press Office (media@permittting.gov)
Georgette A. Furukawa has been named the Director of Public Engagement for the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council), effective January 18. As a former strategic consultant, development director, and external affairs advisor at the U.S. Department of Energy, Furukawa brings more than 15 years of public, private, and civil society experience to the role.
As Director of Public Engagement, Furukawa will work at the local, state, and national levels to ensure community leaders, diverse perspectives, and new voices all have the opportunity to inform the work of the Permitting Council Executive Director. She will create and maintain a two-way dialogue between the Permitting Council and communities across the nation to ensure that voices are heard and that concerns can be translated into action across the Federal infrastructure permitting spectrum. She will lead agency outreach efforts to improve public awareness of the Federal infrastructure environmental review and authorization process and help facilitate engagement from communities to improve the process.
“I am very excited to welcome Georgette to our team,” said Executive Director Christine Harada. “Georgette will be essential to promoting open and effective communication with our many stakeholders. We are committed to considering the diverse views and priorities of state and local governments, Tribal nations, and environmental justice communities in our policies."
Furukawa was most recently Principal for Aestival Strategies, LLC, working with clients in the medical and technology industries. Prior to Aestival Strategies, LLC, she was the Vice President of Government Affairs for global developer and real estate company, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield.
As the former Advisor for Intergovernmental and External Affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy under the Obama administration, Furukawa oversaw external affairs strategies, managed stakeholder relationships, and advanced policy and administration priorities. She also served as the Director of Development for the U.S.-Japan Council, a nonprofit focused on strengthening U.S.-Japan relations. As Senior Associate for External Affairs at Sony, she worked on issues from privacy and innovation to sustainability and conflict minerals. Furukawa has also served in the U.S. House of Representatives for former Congressman Neil Abercrombie and the State of Hawaiʻi for former Lieutenant Governor Mazie K. Hirono.
Furukawa is the first of two children of Japanese immigrants. She holds a bachelor's degree in foreign languages (Chinese and Japanese) and a minor in East Asian studies from Lewis & Clark College.
About the Permitting Council and FAST-41
Established in 2015 by Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41) and made permanent in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Permitting Council is a unique federal agency charged with improving the transparency and predictability of the federal environmental review and authorization process for certain critical infrastructure projects. The Permitting Council is comprised of the Permitting Council Executive Director, who serves as the Council Chair; 13 federal agency Council members (including deputy secretary-level designees of the Secretaries of Agriculture, Army, Commerce, Interior, Energy, Transportation, Defense, Homeland Security, and Housing and Urban Development, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Chairs of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation); and the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
The Permitting Council coordinates federal environmental reviews and authorizations for projects that seek and qualify for FAST-41 coverage. FAST-41 covered projects are entitled to comprehensive permitting timetables and transparent, collaborative management of those timetables on the Federal Permitting Dashboard. FAST-41 covered projects may be in the renewable or conventional energy production, electricity transmission, energy storage, surface transportation, aviation, ports and waterways, water resource, broadband, pipelines, manufacturing, mining, carbon capture, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and machine learning, high-performance computing and advanced computer hardware and software, quantum information science and technology, data storage and data management, and cybersecurity sectors. The Permitting Council also serves as a federal center for permitting excellence, supporting federal efforts to improve infrastructure permitting including and beyond FAST-41 covered projects to the extent authorized by law, including activities that promote or provide for the efficient, timely, and predictable completion of environmental reviews and authorizations for federally-authorized infrastructure projects.
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Last Updated: Wednesday, January 12, 2022