Webinar—Practical Pathways and Tools for State Permitting Reform

Once consigned to developer boardrooms and rural town hall meetings, the topic of state and local permitting processes has leapt into the mainstream in 2026. These hurdles are a critical and increasingly binding constraint on clean energy deployment, and thus lower energy prices. While “permitting reform” is often discussed as a single goal, in practice it encompasses a diverse set of challenges, reform strategies, and governance levels that vary significantly by state and community context.

This one‑hour webinar launched RMI’s State Permitting Power Tool, a publicly available resource designed to help policymakers, advocates, and practitioners quickly identify the specific permitting barriers facing a state and explore policy reforms that are responsive to those challenges. The tool distills insights from dozens of recent permitting playbooks and analyses that we scoured to turn into a practical, challenge‑driven decision aid.

The launch was complemented by two applied perspectives:

• Land and Liberty Coalition shared lessons from working directly with rural communities on siting and permitting, with a focus on trust‑building, landowner engagement, and community‑centered process design.
• Clean Tomorrow discussed legislative trends and provide insights into state-specific reforms advancing in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Iowa, highlighting how policy design can respond to on-the-ground barriers while remaining politically durable.