May 27, 2015 Business and Labor Leaders Agree: It’s Time to Modernize the Federal Permitting Process In a Wall Street Journal op-‐ed entitled "It’s Amazing Anything Ever Gets Built," John Engler, President of Business Roundtable, and Sean McGarvey, President of North America’s Building Trades Unions, call on the President and Congress to do more to modernize the permitting process for infrastructure projects: “Americans of all stripes know that something is seriously wrong when other advanced countries can build infrastructure faster and more efficiently than the U.S., the country that built the Hoover Dam.” Engler and McGarvey urge Congress to pass the Federal Permitting Improvement Act of 2015, S. 280, introduced by Senators Rob Portman (R-‐OH) and Claire McCaskill (D-‐MO): “The Portman-McCaskill bill is a bipartisan opportunity to strengthen the administration’s efforts, improve the permitting process, and begin the task of renewing America’s infrastructure.” To learn more, read the Business Roundtable permit modernization recommendations. Improving America’s regulatory system, including modernizing the federal permitting process, is a key pillar of the Business Roundtable economic growth agenda released earlier this year that also includes tax reform, trade expansion, immigration reform, fiscal stability and infrastructure investment. Learn more about our 2015 growth agenda here. Business Roundtable CEO members lead companies with $7.2 trillion in annual revenues and nearly 16 million employees. Business Roundtable member companies comprise more than a quarter of the total market capitalization of U.S. stock markets and invest $190 billion annually in research and development – equal to 70 percent of U.S. private R&D spending. Our companies pay more than $230 billion in dividends to shareholders and generate more than $470 billion in sales for small and medium-sized businesses annually. Business Roundtable companies also make more than $3 billion a year in charitable contributions. Please visit us at www.brt.org. 300 NEW JERSEY AVENUE, NW SUITE 800 Connect with Business Roundtable: WASHINGTON, DC 20001 202-‐872-‐1260 WWW.BRT.ORG