Army Corps Mandated to Clear Permit Backlog by June 2025: 60-Day Clock Starts Now

The newly proposed Jurisdictional Determination Backlog Reduction Act is short, punchy, and zeroes in on one specific target: clearing out the massive pile of old paperwork sitting at the Army Corps of Engineers. Specifically, the bill mandates that the Secretary of the Army must eliminate all backlogged applications for Section 404 permits and jurisdictional determinations (JDs) that were pending as of June 5, 2025. This massive cleanup operation has to be completed within 60 days of the bill becoming law, and the Secretary is authorized to shift staff and resources around the Corps to make it happen (SEC. 2).

The Permit Logjam: Why This Matters

Think of the Army Corps of Engineers as the gatekeeper for many construction and development projects that involve wetlands or certain waterways. A Jurisdictional Determination (JD) is the Corps’ official ruling on whether a piece of land or water falls under their regulatory authority—a crucial step for anyone planning to build, farm, or develop. The Section 404 permit is what you need if you want to dredge or fill those regulated waters. When these decisions get backlogged, it’s not just an inconvenience; it’s a massive bottleneck for businesses, farmers, and property owners. If you’re a small developer waiting on a JD to start a housing project, or a farmer waiting on a 404 permit to build necessary drainage, every day the application sits in a file cabinet is money lost. This bill is designed to inject speed into that process, forcing a decision on every old application quickly.

The 60-Day Sprint: Benefits and Risks

The upside of this aggressive 60-day deadline is immediate regulatory certainty. For anyone who has been waiting months or years for a decision on their land use, this bill promises a finish line. The Secretary is explicitly allowed to move staff and resources to the Corps’ regulatory division to handle the surge, which is a necessary step to meet the mandate. This means people who have been stuck in bureaucratic limbo finally get an answer, allowing them to move forward with their plans or pivot to new ones.

However, forcing a massive, complex backlog to be cleared in just two months introduces some real-world risks. These JDs and 404 permits involve critical environmental reviews. When you mandate speed over everything else, there’s a real chance that the quality of the review process could suffer. The bill gives the Secretary broad discretion to shift resources “as they think is necessary” (SEC. 2). While this flexibility is needed to meet the deadline, it could result in less thorough environmental assessments as staff rush to process applications. For the average person, this means that while the permit process gets faster, the environmental safeguards associated with those permits might get a lighter touch. It’s a trade-off between regulatory efficiency and meticulous oversight.