HR3898-119

What This Bill Does

The PERMIT Act rewrites multiple Clean Water Act procedures that affect infrastructure, energy, agriculture, wastewater, wetlands, and industrial discharge permitting. It requires states and EPA to consider cost and commercial availability of treatment technologies when reviewing water quality standards, setting water quality criteria, or determining technology-based effluent limits. New or revised water quality criteria would have to be issued by rule and become subject to direct judicial review. Section 401 water-quality certification is narrowed to compliance with specified Clean Water Act provisions, requires states or EPA to publish certification requirements, requires written reasons for grants or denials, and sets completeness and timing rules intended to prevent certification from delaying federal permits.

The bill also changes NPDES and section 404 permitting. EPA may issue general permits on a state, regional, nationwide, or delineated-area basis, and expired general permits can keep applying if EPA does not provide timely notice that it will not reissue a similar permit. NPDES permit terms are extended from five to ten years. Pesticide applications authorized under FIFRA generally would not need Clean Water Act permits unless the pesticide use violates water-quality-related FIFRA provisions or falls into listed exceptions. Section 404 provisions limit EPA veto timing, extend general permits to ten years, treat less-than-three-acre dredged or fill discharges as minimal adverse effects, maintain nationwide permits for linear infrastructure and pipeline projects, set 45-day information-request deadlines for state program submissions, and create 60-day judicial-review windows with comment-preservation requirements.

The bill narrows federal water jurisdiction by excluding waste treatment systems, ephemeral features, prior converted cropland, groundwater, and other EPA/Army Corps excluded features from the definition of navigable waters. It raises certain Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure thresholds, encourages state participation in FAST Act permitting coordination, requires EPA to review and streamline regulations for state section 404 program approval, directs the Army Corps to reduce section 404 permit and jurisdictional-determination backlogs, and states that the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement is voluntary and cooperative.

Who Benefits and How

Municipal wastewater utilities benefit because water-quality standards for combined sewer overflow receiving waters must consider cost-effective controls and commercially available technology. Industrial dischargers, NPDES permit holders, section 404 permit applicants, mining companies with wetland permits, oil and gas pipeline operators, electric transmission companies, construction firms, real estate developers, pesticide applicators, agricultural producers, mosquito control districts, states seeking section 404 program authority, small oil storage facilities, and infrastructure project sponsors benefit from longer permit terms, narrower review windows, more predictable certification rules, fewer pesticide-discharge permits, WOTUS exclusions, and limits on late EPA vetoes or litigation.

Who Bears the Burden and How

EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, state environmental agencies, water-quality scientists, wetlands program staff, environmental organizations, wetland conservation groups, communities relying on receiving waters, citizens challenging permits, Chesapeake Bay restoration advocates, and aquatic ecosystem protection interests must comply with tighter rulemaking, certification, review, and litigation rules. These actors can lose discretion because agencies must consider treatment cost and availability, issue criteria by rule, act within strict windows, preserve expired permit terms, limit the scope of section 401 decisions, face shorter judicial-review deadlines, and accept statutory exclusions from navigable waters.

Key Provisions

• Requires water-quality standards and criteria to consider cost and commercial availability of treatment technologies.
• Requires new or revised water-quality criteria to be issued by rule and made subject to direct judicial review.
• Restricts section 401 certification decisions to specified Clean Water Act compliance questions and imposes completeness, timing, and written-reason requirements.
• Authorizes broader general permits and extends NPDES permit terms from five years to ten years.
• Exempts many FIFRA-authorized pesticide applications from separate Clean Water Act discharge permits.
• Limits EPA section 404 veto timing and extends section 404 general permits to ten years.
• Provides nationwide permitting rules for certain linear infrastructure and pipeline projects.
• Requires 60-day judicial-review windows and comment-preservation rules for section 404 challenges.
• Excludes waste treatment systems, ephemeral features, prior converted cropland, groundwater, and certain other features from navigable waters.
• Raises SPCC threshold amounts and directs EPA and the Army Corps to streamline state program approvals and permit backlogs.