16. Department of the Interior · Minor
Hold regional offices to state-average permit processing times
Printed page 523 16. Department of the Interior
“Require regional offices to complete right-of-way and drilling permits within the average time it takes states in the region to complete them.”
What has happened
- Not started
No standard benchmarking BLM regional offices to state permitting averages was found in the Federal Register corpus, in Interior's Secretary's Orders series through SO 3453, or in Interior's 2025–2026 press releases. What exists sets absolute targets instead: the May 2025 instruction memorandum commits BLM to complete lease-parcel review within six months, the emergency permitting procedures announced on 2025-04-23 compress energy reviews to days, and the August 2025 direct final rule changed the valid period of an approved application for permit to drill. Those speed permits up; none of them measures BLM against the states.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Interior has cut permitting time in several ways; none of them is the benchmark the Quote specifies, which would tie a BLM office’s right-of-way and drilling-permit clock to the average of the states in its region.
Checked against the full 2026 Unified Agenda on reginfo.gov (Interior, agencyCd 1000, active stages, read 2026-09-01; agenda published in the Federal Register 2026-08-14). The nearest entry is RIN 1004-AF32, “Broadband and Rights-of-Way Under 43 CFR 2800” (BLM, Proposed Rule Stage, Previously Published, NPRM projected 07/2026), which promises “other program efficiencies affecting Rights-of-Way administration” — the ask’s subject area, but no processing-time standard and no benchmark against state averages. The item stays not started: an agenda entry counts only when it names this ask’s object.
- Action
- restrict
- Object
- Regional office right-of-way and drilling permit timelines
- ID
- 1475