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

WASHINGTON (July 29, 2024) — The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) is pleased to announce a cross-government hiring effort sponsored by our agency and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). This interagency hiring initiative provides a unique opportunity to meet the critical needs of permitting agencies across the federal government, as they strive to bring timeliness and efficiency to environmental review and authorizations for infrastructure projects nationwide. 

The Permitting Council and OPM have partnered on a cross-government hiring initiative to develop an easily accessible pool of applicants for Environmental Protection Specialist positions supporting the important environmental reviews and authorizations of infrastructure projects. This vacancy announcement will assist agencies in expediting their hiring needs for permitting talent, a key strategy in filling the resource gaps at Permitting Council agencies. 

This initiative—along with the $165 million in Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding the Permitting Council allocated to federal agencies last fall to increase permitting capacity—will expedite hiring actions in order to bring efficiency to environmental review. 

“As the Permitting Council works to strategically address the resource and capacity needs of the federal agencies charged with environmental review, this hiring effort is poised to be a powerful tool as we work to improve the efficiency of the overall process,” said Eric Beightel, Permitting Council Executive Director. “Having a readily available pool of qualified applicants at hand will be a game changer for federal agencies, providing the vital expertise needed to get the job done.”  

The Permitting Council and OPM kicked off this initiative in June and received nearly 4,000 applications. Beginning in August, agencies will be able to leverage this qualified pool of applicants to hire the staff they need to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal infrastructure permitting process, meet review timelines, and advance predictability of decision timing to build essential infrastructure projects across the nation. 

Learn more about these opportunities at usajobs.gov. Learn more about the Permitting Council 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.