Text of Senate Amendment 6617

On 2026-07-13, Senator Cory A. Booker (D-NJ) delivered a floor speech titled "Text Of Senate Amendment 6617" in the Senate.

Text of Senate Amendment 6617

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 113 (Monday, July 13, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 113 (Monday, July 13, 2026)] [Senate] [Pages S3822-S3824] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] SA 6617. Mr. BOOKER (for himself and Mr. Curtis) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 4784, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2027 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: At the end of subtitle G of title X, add the following: SEC. 1__. EPERMIT ACT. (a) Findings.--The Congress finds that-- (1) coordination between Federal, State, and local agencies and project sponsors is critical to ensuring the timely and effective completion of environmental reviews and authorizations, including through the sharing of relevant information, alignment of environmental review timelines, and integration of authorizations, while maintaining compliance with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements; (2) digital strategies for environmental reviews have proven to make the community engagement process more accessible, available, and transparent to all stakeholders, especially the communities in which new projects are built; (3) establishing robust data architectures will ensure data integrity, improve transparency, reduce costs, and enhance the ability of the Federal Government to serve the public; (4) Federal agency use of modern software that can track the full lifecycle of environmental reviews and authorizations is critical for-- (A) effective project management and process improvement; (B) enabling workflow automation, transparency, and tracking; and (C) simplifying reporting requirements; (5) modern business process management systems that track Federal agency workflows and produce vendor neutral, interoperable event, task, and other milestone data that can be shared with other Federal agency systems can reduce costs and improve performance for Federal agencies responsible for environmental reviews and authorizations; (6) case and project management systems-- (A) are essential tools for managing the tasks and activities associated with environmental reviews and authorizations; and (B) provide Federal agencies more data and insight into such environmental reviews and authorizations; (7) well-defined business rules can enable process automation that allows Federal agencies responsible for environmental reviews or authorizations to expedite routine tasks and workflows, and improve transparency and accuracy of project timeline estimates, which in turn can help project sponsors better plan for application preparation and project delivery milestones; (8) taking a standardized, digital-first perspective to environmental reviews and authorizations at Federal agencies responsible for environmental reviews or authorizations will improve document quality, lead to more concise reports, enable the reuse and accessibility of the data underpinning Federal agency analyses and decisions, and enable objective, technology-assisted evaluation of environmental impacts, analysis, and documentation, and accelerate future environmental reviews and authorizations; (9) Federal agencies responsible for environmental reviews or authorizations, project sponsors, and the public should have access to up-to-date information on accurate timelines and the status of environmental reviews and authorizations; and (10) allowing for seamless information exchange among Federal agencies and between Federal agencies and project sponsors will increase predictability and efficiency of environmental review and authorization schedules for project sponsors. (b) Establishment of Data Standards.-- (1) In general.--Not later than 60 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, in consultation with the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, the Chief Information Officers Council, the Office of Management and Budget, and other relevant stakeholders and Federal agencies, shall develop, publish, and iteratively update data standards for the collection and curation of authorization data by Federal agencies, which shall be used to-- (A) assist with environmental reviews and authorizations; (B) organize, define, and standardize various concepts, formats, and protocols that are included in environmental reviews and authorizations; and (C) reduce the need for redundant environmental reviews by creating a shared vocabulary and software systems that will support vendor neutrality, data interoperability, workflow automation, and automatic data exchange between Federal agencies. (2) Inclusions.--The data standards developed, published, and iteratively updated under paragraph (1) shall include the following: (A) A standardized taxonomy that allows Federal agencies to identify and track data types, relationships, and values. (B) Comprehensive categories for data, such as-- (i) projects; (ii) processes; (iii) environmental documents; (iv) public comments; (v) geospatial information; (vi) public engagement events, as applicable by process or Federal agency; (vii) case events; and (viii) milestones to ensure clarity and uniformity. (c) Development of Prototype Tools.--The Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, in consultation with the Administrator of General Services, the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, the Chief Information Officers Council, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and other relevant stakeholders and Federal agencies, shall design, test, and build prototype tools for environmental reviews and authorizations that will assist Federal agencies in implementing the minimum functional requirements described in subsection (d). The Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality shall prioritize designing, testing, and building tools under this subsection that-- (1) support authorization case or project management systems that manage tasks, milestones, and activities associated with environmental reviews and authorizations, and provide Federal agencies more data and insight into such reviews and authorizations; (2) enable-- (A) application submission and tracking portals used by project sponsors, enabling greater transparency; and (B) public comment opportunity tracking portals to increase transparency; (3) facilitate automated applications, environmental reviews. and authorizations; (4) allow data exchange between Federal agency systems; and (5) accelerate complex environmental reviews. (d) Publication of Guidance for Implementation of Data Standards and Minimum Functional Requirements.-- (1) Publication.--Not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality shall publish guidance for how each Federal agency responsible for environmental reviews or authorizations implements-- (A) the data standards published under subsection (b); and (B) the following minimum functional requirements: (i) Application data sharing that enables automated transfer of relevant environmental review and authorization data among Federal agencies. (ii) Automated project screening to assist frontline staff with reviewing project sponsor provided information for completeness and accuracy and determining if a categorical exclusion or other general authorization applies to an action. Automated project screening may not be used by the Council on Environmental Quality or a Federal agency to unlawfully restrict any activities on Federal lands. (iii) Public availability of screening criteria and related decision models. (iv) Automated case or project management tools which include a repository of relevant data and metadata that enable advanced tracking, reporting, and optimization to aid workflows. (v) Integrated geographic information system analysis tools which incorporate geospatial data layers and models for each resource analyzed as part of an environmental review or authorization for a given study area. (vi) Document management tools that preserve metadata associated with geospatial analysis, modeling, and other analytic processes conducted during an environmental review or authorization, to support future reviews and enable Artificial Intelligence-assisted analysis of past decisions. (vii) Automated comment compilation and analysis tools, including services for comment categorization and response that handle the lifecycle of comment submission, analysis, categorization and response with Artificial Intelligence support where appropriate. (viii) Administrative record management tools that maintain both portable document formats and data-rich repositories accessible to both machine and human users. (ix) Common or interoperable Federal agency services that integrate shared services, shared applications, and common user experiences for Federal agency staff, project sponsors, and the public. (2) Inclusions.--The guidance published under this subsection shall include the following: (A) Guidelines for cloud-based storage, data sharing protocols, and application programming interfaces to enable the Council on Environmental Quality to work with Federal agencies to use authorization data to aid Federal agencies in modernizing their environmental reviews and authorizations and for iterative development of the authorization portal. (B) Provisions that support scalability and adaptability of the minimum requirements to emerging technologies. (e) Implementation of Data Standards and Minimum Functional Requirements.-- [[Page S3823]] (1) Implementation.--The head of each Federal agency responsible for environmental reviews or authorizations shall-- (A) not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act-- (i) compare exis