Promoting Efficient Review for Modern Infrastructure Today (PERMIT) Act, H.R. 3898: SBE Council Statement of Support

By SBE Council at 9 December, 2025, 8:21 pm

The following statement of support for H.R. 3898 can be attributed to Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council) President & CEO Karen Kerrigan:

"SBE Council is pleased to support H.R. 3898, the PERMIT Act, which advances long overdue and sensible reforms to the Clean Water Act (CWA). Small businesses across key sectors have borne the brunt of a permitting system that has become an intrusive tool for delaying and derailing productive investment rather than protecting water quality. The PERMIT Act addresses longstanding barriers with balanced reforms to ensure the permitting process functions as the statute intended."

"For small business owners in construction, housing, farming, energy, manufacturing and infrastructure - and the many diverse businesses that support activity in these sectors - the PERMIT Act delivers clarity and predictability to a system that has turned routine business activity into a legal and financial nightmare. It fixes an unworkable system with reforms that promote timely permitting decisions, clear rules, and strict limits on the judicial review process to stop activists from stonewalling progress. It also eliminates duplicative red tape and prevents abuse by ensuring permits cannot be revoked from businesses that follow the law in good faith. Overall, it refocuses the CWA on actual water quality, not on unrelated political or procedural objectives used to block projects for reasons that have nothing to do with environmental protection."

"SBE Council has long vocalized the economic harm imposed through regulatory activism embedded in the Clean Water Act and its Obama-era expansion, the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule. Small business owners - and all Americans - deserve a regulatory framework that supports responsible development and productive economic activity. We urge all U.S. House members to support the PERMIT Act."

SBE Council is a nonpartisan advocacy, research and education organization dedicated to protecting small business and promoting entrepreneurship. For more than 30 years, SBE Council has advanced a range of private sector and public policy initiatives to strengthen the ecosystem for strong startup activity and small business growth.

Visit www.sbecouncil.org for additional information. X: @SBECouncil