# Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and OpenAI partner to accelerate federal permitting

DevFeed: [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and OpenAI partner to accelerate federal permitting](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/pacific-northwest-national-laboratory-and-openai-partner-to-accelerate-federal-permitting-6598.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://openai.com/index/pacific-northwest-national-laboratory>)

Published: 2026-02-26T10:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [OpenAI News](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/openai-news.md>)

Topics: [AI-assisted coding](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-assisted-coding.md>), [OpenAI](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/openai.md>), [Benchmark](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/benchmark.md>), [AI Models](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-models.md>), [codex](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/codex.md>), [Command-line interface](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cli.md>), [Critical Infrastructure](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/critical-infrastructure.md>), [Filesystems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/filesystems.md>)

Tags: [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [ai-coding](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-coding.md>), [ai-models](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-models.md>), [benchmark](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/benchmark.md>), [cli](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cli.md>), [critical-infrastructure](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/critical-infrastructure.md>), [department-of-energy](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/department-of-energy.md>), [global-affairs](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/global-affairs.md>), [infrastructure](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/infrastructure.md>), [openai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/openai.md>), [work](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/work.md>)

## AI overview

OpenAI and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory evaluated whether coding agents can accelerate federal NEPA permitting work. Their DraftNEPABench benchmark found that generalized coding agents could reduce environmental-impact-statement drafting time by up to roughly 15%, or 1 to 5 hours per subsection.

## Source excerpt

OpenAI and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory introduce DraftNEPABench, a new benchmark evaluating how AI coding agents can accelerate federal permitting--showing potential to reduce NEPA drafting time by up to 15% and modernize infrastructure reviews.