The biggest barrier to building America isn’t politics. It’s paperwork
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COMMENTARY | Too many projects are trapped in overlapping permit reviews, with no accountability for delay. If the nation is to lead on emerging tech, this has to change.
Congress and the White House are increasingly rallying around a major national priority: building America faster. The recently introduced Build AMERICA 250 Act, which would invest heavily in roads, bridges, transit and broadband, reflects growing bipartisan recognition that the United States must modernize critical infrastructure to continue leading a fast-changing world.
But here is the unavoidable truth: none of this progress can happen at the speed the country needs without meaningful permitting reform.
One of us leads an organization representing the nation’s governors — Republicans and Democrats charged with delivering results for their states. The other leads the association representing America’s broadband providers — the companies whose crews, engineers and investments build the networks that connect us all. We come at this from very different vantage points. But we have arrived at the same conclusion: America’s permitting system is broken, not by ideology, but by bureaucracy.
Governors see businesses waiting to invest, communities waiting for connectivity and infrastructure projects waiting to break ground. Industry sees construction crews ready but sitting idle with no deadline in sight, ratcheting up costs and uncertainty. Both sides hear the same frustration from the people they serve.
Rarely is the problem a permit that actually gets denied. It is a more insidious and primordial foe — the slow roll of bureaucracy. Projects that should take weeks extend to months or even years, trapped in overlapping reviews from multiple agencies operating on different timelines with no coordination and no accountability for delay. That is not oversight. It is obstruction by inaction. Death by a thousand paper cuts.
The cost is real, and it is mounting. Every unnecessary delay means rural communities and underserved neighborhoods wait longer for reliable, strong internet. Businesses postpone expansion. Consumers pay more for energy. Infrastructure projects grow more expensive with each passing month.
To be clear, communities deserve a voice in what gets built around them, and legitimate concerns deserve a fair hearing. But a process that takes years to deliver an answer that could come in weeks is not protecting anyone.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that governors are leading on a better path forward. They are already proving that practical reform works.
In Massachusetts, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey has reduced energy permitting timelines while maintaining environmental review and local input. In West Virginia, Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey has streamlined permitting to attract new investment and jobs. These leaders are demonstrating that faster does not have to mean reckless. It can mean driving toward outcomes that our communities and our economy very much need.
Washington can learn from this model. Several bills introduced in Congress seek to cut permitting timelines for infrastructure projects on federal lands. Together, they represent meaningful steps toward improving the permitting process. But broader, lasting reform remains elusive.
Permitting reform is not about choosing between growth and accountability. It is about recognizing that endless delay is itself a policy choice — one with serious consequences for the workers, businesses and communities counting on progress.
America is entering a period of extraordinary infrastructure need — driven by artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and data-intensive technologies. The country will need major expansions in electricity generation, transmission capacity, wireless infrastructure, fiber networks and more, simply to remain competitive, let alone to continue to lead the world and ensure future economic opportunities reach everyone.
Our global competitors are not waiting. Every month America spends mired in permitting delays is a month they race ahead and build. These are unforced errors, and they should be unacceptable to all of us.
America cannot lead the world if it cannot build.
So, let’s build.
Brandon Tatum is CEO of the National Governors Association. Jonathan Spalter is CEO of USTelecom.
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