Best Practice Reports

These reports provide guidance on how to improve the environmental review and permitting process for large infrastructure projects. They offer strategies and practices aimed at enhancing transparency, predictability, and accountability in the permitting process, while ensuring environmental protection. 

• FY 2024 

• FY 2023 

• FY 2022 

• FY 2021 

• FY 2020 

• FY 2019 

• FY 2018 

• FY 2017 

FY 2024 Recommended Best Practices Report

The Permitting Council has issued its Recommended Best Practices for Fiscal Year 2024. The report emphasizes three key best practices: 

• tracking and reporting environmental and community outcomes to assess the impacts of projects on ecological and social systems 

• improving internal systems for tracking the status of reviews and permitting, and 

• establishing issue elevation procedures to resolve permitting disputes efficiently. 

It also encourages agencies to adopt measurable and actionable practices that drive timely and transparent environmental reviews, fostering continuous improvements across federal infrastructure projects.

FY 2023 Recommended Best Practices Report

The Permitting Council has issued its Recommended Best Practices for Fiscal Year 2023. The report focuses on refining and expanding the federal environmental review and authorization process through collaboration across agencies. Building on new mandates introduced by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the report reissues all best practices from FY 2018 to FY 2022, allowing agencies time to implement and assess their impact. The document emphasizes actionable and measurable best practices, including:

• stakeholder engagement, 

• early coordination with Tribes, and 

• the use of programmatic assessments. 

The 2023 approach encourages a "look back" to improve future permitting processes and prepare agencies for reporting to Congress by April 2024.

FY 2022 Recommended Best Practices Report

The Permitting Council has issued its Recommended Best Practices for Fiscal Year 2022.  When Congress enacted the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), it added three new categories to the existing FAST-41 list of categories of best practices. In order to allow Permitting Council agencies to focus their efforts on implementing improvements within these new categories, the Permitting Council is issuing recommendations for best practices exclusively in the three new IIJA categories for fiscal year (FY) 2022. The linked report covers best practices related to:

• Improving preliminary engagement with project sponsors in developing coordinated project plans;  

• Using programmatic assessments, templates, and other tools based on the best available science and data; and

• Engaging with Native American stakeholders to ensure that project sponsors and agencies identify potential natural, archeological, and cultural resources and locations of historic and religious significance in the area of the covered project. 

These recommendations were developed through a collaborative and coordinated interagency process.

FY 2021 Recommended Best Practices Report

The Permitting Council released the Recommended Best Practices for Environmental Reviews and Authorizations for Infrastructure Projects for Fiscal Year 2021 on April 23, 2021.  From improving tribal consultations to maintaining project plans, the Best Practices Report provides 12 recommendations in 6 categories to guide agencies in making improvements to the project review and permitting process.

The Permitting Council develops best practices based on feedback from member agencies and the Office of the Executive Director’s (OED) observations of key challenges and areas for improvement. For Fiscal Year 2021, the Permitting Council created two new best practices and revised five existing best practices. OED assesses Permitting Council member agencies’ progress in making improvements consistent with the best practices in its Annual Report to Congress pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 4370m-7(a)(2)(A).

FY 2020 Recommended Best Practices Report

The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) released the Recommended Best Practices for Environmental Reviews and Authorizations for Infrastructure Projects for Fiscal Year 2020 on May 21, 2020. Permitting Council agencies are encouraged to meet the intent of the best practices through use of innovative methods and to implement the best practices in collaboration with other agencies and stakeholders. The Permitting Council’s targeted efforts in fiscal year 2020 build upon the work and accomplishments of the past three years to continue to increase transparency, predictability, and accountability of the federal environmental review and authorization processes for infrastructure projects in the coming years.

FY 2019 Recommended Best Practices Report

The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) released the Recommended Best Practices for Environmental Reviews and Authorizations for Infrastructure Projects for Fiscal Year 2019  on April 26, 2019. Permitting Council agencies are encouraged to meet the intent of the best practices through use of innovative methods and to implement the best practices in collaboration with other agencies and stakeholders. The Permitting Council’s targeted efforts in fiscal year 2019 build upon the work and accomplishments of the past two years to continue to increase transparency, predictability, and accountability of the federal environmental review and authorization processes for infrastructure projects in the coming years.

FY 2018 Recommended Best Practices Report

The Permitting Council released the Recommended Best Practices for Environmental Reviews and Authorizations for Infrastructure Projects for Fiscal Year 2018 on December 1, 2017. Permitting Council agencies are encouraged to work together to implement the best practices identified in this report in their effort to meet the objectives for federal permitting process improvement. The Permitting Council’s targeted efforts in fiscal year 2018 will build upon the work and accomplishments of the past year to continue to increase transparency, predictability, and accountability of the federal environmental review and authorization processes for infrastructure projects in the coming years.

FY 2017 Recommended Best Practices Report

On January 18, 2017, the Permitting Council released Recommended Best Practices for Environmental Reviews and Authorizations for Infrastructure Projects. Federal agencies are encouraged to make improvements consistent with these recommendations, as appropriate, in their execution of the environmental reviews and authorizations for infrastructure projects.