Permitting Reform Legislation: What Armstrong’s AEMI Would Change

Originally published for customers July 10, 2026.

What’s the issue?

Senator Alan Armstrong’s American Energy and Mineral Infrastructure Act of 2026 (AEMI) rolls the major permitting reform concepts into a single bill, targeting the most common permitting choke points for energy infrastructure.

Why does it matter?

For natural gas infrastructure, reforms to any of the major themes (NEPA scope, FERC control, the Clean Water Act, Corps permits, standing, judicial timelines, and remedies) could measurably reduce risk on cost, schedule, litigation, and uncertainty.

What’s our view?

AEMI is the most comprehensive permitting reform legislation introduced to date. But binding the reform agenda together does not make it law. Congress has stalled controversial permitting reforms before, and may do so again.

Permitting reform means different things to different people. Arbo defines it as making infrastructure reviews faster, more predictable, and more durable against litigation that can derail a project after approval. This post breaks down Armstrong’s AEMI bill, the most comprehensive permitting reform legislation introduced so far, and ranks its five biggest provisions for natural gas infrastructure by how much they would change project risk and how likely each is to become law.

What Permitting Reform Means, and Why the Vehicle Matters

Permitting reform is one of those Washington phrases that sounds more settled than it is. Most people support it in principle, but it means different things depending on who you ask. To us, it means making project reviews faster, more predictable, and more durable to litigation that can derail projects after approval.

Seen this way, reform works on two timelines. Pre-permit reforms change how projects are reviewed before approval. Post-permit reforms change what happens after approval, especially when permits are challenged in court. Both matter: a faster pre-permit review is less valuable if litigation can still stop construction years later.

The reform vehicle matters too, and it generally falls into three categories. Executive action covers executive orders and changes to agency regulation, guidance, or process. Legislative action changes the laws themselves. Judicial action refers to decisions made by courts, not to be confused with proposals to change how courts make decisions, which would fall under legislative reform.

The potential impact of a proposed reform depends on its substance and how durable the vehicle is. Executive action can move quickly but is easier to reverse, as Arbo tracked among the reforms already reshaping timelines in From Paper to Pipe, What Recent Reforms Mean for Project Timelines. Court decisions can reshape the legal playing field, but only when high courts, ideally the Supreme Court, decide the right cases. Legislative reforms are usually the most durable because they change the law itself. That is why many of the most substantive reforms also carry low or medium odds of enactment: they rely on Congressional action that has yet to meaningfully materialize.

How Arbo Ranks the Provisions: Substance Plus Durability

AEMI is useful because it lays out most of the current permitting reform agenda in one place. But even in a bill built to bind these concepts together, each provision carries different weight. To separate signal from noise, we ranked the major provisions by impact, which we define as substance plus durability: how much would the reform change project risk, and how likely is that change to stick?

The Five AEMI Provisions That Matter Most for Natural Gas

1. NEPA Scope: Codifying and Extending Seven County

The most powerful provision conceptually is NEPA scope. Seven County is already the most impactful reform in effect, a Supreme Court decision that narrowed NEPA’s reach and gave agencies more room to define the scope of their environmental reviews, a shift Arbo examined in Two Paths to Deference. AEMI would take this a step further. Instead of only giving agencies discretion over how far down the causal chain to look, it would restrict agencies to “only consider effects” with a reasonably close causal relationship to and proximately caused by the project.

The chart below shows time to FERC certificate for projects in three groupings: those with environmental reviews that ended before Seven County, those that started before and ended after Seven County, and those that both started and ended after Seven County. Viewed this way, permitting time trends downward. Most of these projects had environmental assessments, with a few environmental impact statements across all groups.

2. Remedy Limitations: Curbing Vacatur

The next most powerful provision limits judicial remedies, especially vacatur. Limiting remedies to remand insulates projects from the possibility of losing a permit and halting construction. AEMI would limit the ability of courts to vacate permit approvals for faulty analysis under NEPA, the Natural Gas Act, and the Clean Water Act, under both Sections 401 and 404. The only caveat to the proposed limit is for cases controlled by the Administrative Procedure Act, under NEPA and the Natural Gas Act. Even so, remedy limitations put a thumb heavily on the scale in favor of remand. Similar concepts have appeared across the PERMIT Act, SPEED Act, MRC Act, JOAN Act, UAEJ, and AEMI.

3. Clean Water Act Section 401 Reform

For natural gas infrastructure, Clean Water Act Section 401 reform remains one of the most commercially relevant pre-permit provisions, and it stays a live litigation front, as in the NESE pipeline litigation. AEMI would address it by removing the Section 401 certification requirement entirely as applied to FERC-regulated natural gas infrastructure. It would also make FERC the arbiter of which state-proposed water-quality conditions to include, like the Improving Interagency Coordination for Pipeline Reviews Act and JOAN proposals before it. The bill would broaden Section 401 reform further by imposing a one-year, no-tolling deadline with higher denial standards, as seen in UAEJ, and a provision prohibiting judicial review of federal permitting agency determinations that states waived Section 401 authority.

4. Standing and Participation Limits

AEMI’s NEPA provision would limit review to parties that submitted a “substantive and unique” comment during the public comment period, that are also “sufficiently detailed to put the agency on notice” of the issue, and whose later claim concerns the same subject matter raised in the initial comment. The submitting party must also have suffered, or imminently will suffer, direct harm from the final agency approval. This concept appears broadly across the PERMIT, SPEED, MRC, JOAN, and UAEJ proposals.

AEMI also uses clear and convincing evidence as a recurring standard, not a one-off phrase. It appears in the FERC-specific Section 401 structure, where FERC could include state-proposed water-quality conditions only if it finds clear and convincing evidence that they are necessary. It also appears in the broader Section 401 provisions governing conditions, denials, and judicial review, and in the Natural Gas Act permitting provisions as a standard for challenges.

5. Judicial Timelines

AEMI proposes prescriptive deadlines for court action across all sections, including expedited treatment for certain challenges that can be extended under extraordinary circumstances. These provisions would both shorten judicial review timelines and add certainty to litigation timelines, which is key for project planning. Similar provisions have been proposed in the PERMIT, SPEED, and JOAN Acts.

Will Armstrong’s Permitting Reform Bill Become Law?

The fate of permitting reform again rests with Congress. Senator Armstrong is the sponsor, and his bill stands alongside the recycled Energy Permitting Reform Act from former Sen. Manchin, the SPEED and PERMIT Acts from the House, and Sen. Barrasso’s Let America Build Act. The odds of a standalone comprehensive bill are declining as this Congress winds down. Other legislative paths remain.

Permitting Reform Legislation: Frequently Asked Questions

What is the American Energy and Mineral Infrastructure Act (AEMI)?

Introduced by Senator Alan Armstrong, AEMI is a comprehensive permitting reform bill that combines the major reform concepts, including NEPA scope, FERC authority, Clean Water Act Section 401, standing, judicial timelines, and remedies, into a single package for energy infrastructure.

How would AEMI change NEPA reviews?

AEMI would codify and extend the Supreme Court’s Seven County decision, restricting agencies to effects with a reasonably close causal relationship to and proximately caused by the project.

What would AEMI do to Clean Water Act Section 401?

For FERC-regulated natural gas infrastructure, AEMI would remove the Section 401 certification requirement entirely and make FERC the arbiter of which state water-quality conditions apply, subject to a clear and convincing evidence standard.

Is AEMI likely to become law?

Arbo’s view is that AEMI is the most comprehensive roll-up to date, but the odds of a standalone comprehensive bill are declining as the current Congress winds down, though other legislative paths remain.

If you would like to discuss how current permitting reform legislation would affect project timelines, litigation exposure, or in-service risk, please contact us.