A key component of President Donald Trump's infrastructure plan and an opportunity for bipartisan support is the reform of the permitting process, Sen. Dan Sullivan told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday.
Setting a time limit on federal permit reviews, which currently can drag on for many years, will give the private sector incentives to invest, insisted the Alaska Republican, who sits on the Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
"Every mayor, every governor, sees these problems" with the current broken permitting system, Sullivan said. "The more you have certainty in terms of permitting, the more you can say to private sector investors, 'we can get this permitted in a year and a half or two years,' the more money you are going to see from the private sector that will want to invest, and I think that's a crucial component that has been missing in the infrastructure debate."
He added that the vast majority of the money for improvement in infrastructure is going to be coming from the private sector "if we reform our permitting system that can ensure investors that costs will go down and that we can bring these projects on line, on time, and that's where you get the money from the private sector."
Sullivan also was enthusiastic that about 25 percent of the funds in this infrastructure proposal will be set aside to develop rural states such as his own, to be distributed to states in the form of block grants.
"Certain states that don't have big populations can't always have the toll roads," Sullivan said.
Tolls are a common technique to help recoup the cost of construction and maintenance.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.