This Week in Permitting Tech April 13, 2026: CEQ Ships CE Explorer and CE Works
CEQ shipped actual software this week. That sentence alone is worth reading twice.
CEQ launches CE Explorer and CE Works
CEQ issued new categorical exclusion guidance on April 9, replacing the 2010 memo with a "CE-first" approach to NEPA reviews. More interesting than the guidance itself are two technology tools that came with it.
The Categorical Exclusion Explorer is a searchable database of existing CEs across all federal agencies. CE Works is a platform that digitizes the process of completing a CE determination. These are the first real permitting technology products deployed by a federal agency under this administration, built with GSA's Technology Transformation Services.
The CE Explorer directly addresses something practitioners have told me for months: they can't easily find what CEs exist across agencies. Now there's a federal tool for that. Whether agencies adopt it is the next question.
White House Release · CEQ Guidance Page
ePermit Act gets a Senate companion
Senator John Curtis introduced S. 3800, creating a Senate companion to the ePermit Act (H.R. 4503, which passed the House unanimously in December). The bill would require CEQ to develop and publish federal data standards for environmental review data within 180 days of enactment, covering taxonomies, project permits, public comments, geospatial information, and milestones. It also mandates a unified, cloud-based authorization portal for submission and tracking.
This is the most specific permitting technology legislation moving through Congress right now. Data standards before interoperability, interoperability before automation. That sequence is now written into a bill with bipartisan sponsors in both chambers.
Congress.gov · FedScoop · ClearPath Action
Clariti-CivCheck integration approaching milestone
Clariti's October 2025 acquisition of CivCheck is nearing its spring 2026 integration milestone. CivCheck's AI plan review capabilities will become available across Clariti Enterprise and other permitting software vendors. Rather than locking CivCheck into Clariti's platform exclusively, they're building integrations with third-party permitting vendors, positioning CivCheck as a horizontal AI layer across the municipal permitting market.
That's a meaningful strategic choice. Most acquisitions in this space lead to platform lock-in. Clariti is betting that being the AI engine inside other people's platforms is worth more than exclusivity.
DOI issues Secretarial Order on AI in permitting
The Secretary of the Interior issued a Secretarial Order on Artificial Intelligence that explicitly names "permitting efficiency" as a domain for AI deployment. The order claims DOI is "already seeing results" including "streamlined environmental reviews" while requiring human-in-the-loop safeguards.
Beveridge & Diamond published a legal analysis flagging a risk practitioners haven't fully absorbed: project opponents may use AI involvement in environmental review as grounds for legal challenge. That's a new wrinkle that every agency deploying AI tools should be thinking about.
Beveridge & Diamond · National Law Review
AI permitting moves from pilots to production
Route Fifty published a useful roundup of how state and local governments are operationalizing AI in 2026. Seattle's PACT Team is piloting AI tools to pre-screen applications and flag common errors, with full rollout expected this year. California's governor announced an AI-driven pilot for building permit approvals. The article frames this as a shift from "what's possible" to "what's dependable."
The coverage has changed. A year ago, these stories led with the technology. Now they lead with the workflow.
GSA and NIST partner on AI evaluation standards
GSA and NIST announced a partnership to develop evaluation standards for AI tools in federal operations. The initiative will develop methods to test and measure AI systems' performance before agencies deploy them. If the standards include environmental review or compliance use cases, they'll provide the first federal benchmark for AI performance in permitting.
Permitting Tech is an independent news site covering investment, products, and policy in permitting technology. Written by Boon Sheridan.
