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Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and OpenAI partner to accelerate federal permitting
February 26, 2026
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and OpenAI introduced DraftNEPABench, a new benchmark for evaluating AI coding agents on federal permitting tasks, with reported potential to cut NEPA drafting time by up to 15%. The benchmark is notable because it targets infrastructure review workflows, where even modest time savings could speed up government permitting and modernization efforts.
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.
Source: openai.com