Contact Information
Permitting Council Press Office (media@permitting.gov)

WASHINGTON (November 19, 2024) – The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) is pleased to announce the latest project to receive permitting assistance through the FAST-41 program, the Pantheon Solar project. If permitted, this $1.8 billion project is anticipated to power the annual daytime energy needs of approximately 230,000 households.  

“The Permitting Council is excited to have the Pantheon Solar project join the FAST-41 infrastructure portfolio,” said Eric Beightel, Permitting Council Executive Director. “Solar projects play a pivotal role in the clean energy transition and an important part of the work we champion at the Permitting Council. I look forward to bringing the project developers and our federal colleagues together to ensure that this project benefits from the transparency, predictability and accountability offered through the FAST-41 permitting assistance program.”

Located approximately 16 miles west of Ely, Nevada on public lands, the project’s goal is to produce 400 megawatts of solar energy annually. The project encompasses approximately 2,682 acres of land administered by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management in the largely uninhabited Jakes Valley section of the state. 

The Bureau of Land Management is the lead agency for this project. Learn more at permitting.gov.

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.