Earlier this month, the 4th Circuit denied a motion from activist groups trying to stop construction of our Southeast Supply Enhancement project — a 55-mile, $1.2 billion pipeline expansion that will create jobs and deliver U.S.-produced natural gas to nearly 10 million homes across four Eastern states.
The lawsuit, spearheaded by the Sierra Club, was filed shortly after another activist group, the Southern Environmental Law Center, asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to suspend our lawfully issued Clean Water Act permit for SSE. Similar lawsuits from similar groups have been filed against another project in the region, MVP Southgate.
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Don’t let activist names or the claimed intent of these lawsuits fool you. These groups advocate and celebrate the delay and cancellation of energy infrastructure projects that would, in reality, support the retirement of coal-fired power plants along the Eastern seaboard and lower energy costs for American families and businesses.
OPINION: PERMITTING REFORM CAN UNLOCK AMERICA’S ENERGY FUTURE
Sierra Club, SELC, and others like them actually have a long history of increasing emissions and raising energy prices through advocacy and legal action that purports to reduce both. I would encourage every citizen and community organizer to resist the urge to fight infrastructure proposals and come together to support projects that will improve Americans’ quality of life.
SSE and MVP Southgate have the potential to deliver affordable, low-emitting, domestically produced natural gas to U.S. markets that continue to struggle to meet the energy needs of local communities. However, delivering needed projects requires navigating a gauntlet of frivolous lawsuits and a yearslong, byzantine permitting process that is layered with duplicative bureaucratic reviews and red tape.
Unnecessary litigation and an outdated permitting process are holding our country back from modernizing energy and lowering costs for Americans. It can take longer and cost more to permit a project than to build it. We recently won the final litigation of a project we started permitting in 2012. Thirteen years of litigation on a single project. We won every challenge along the way, but in the end, American families and businesses bore the burden of unnecessary cost increases and project delays. And imagine how many more good projects in America never make it off the drawing board due to the burden placed on American innovation by the activists who have made it a lucrative business to oppose infrastructure projects.
U.S. companies are seeking to invest over $1 trillion in domestic data centers over the next five years to win the race for artificial intelligence and seize the economic opportunity it offers Americans. Without reliable energy infrastructure, this opportunity will not be realized. To build to our full potential, Congress urgently needs to pass real, meaningful permitting reform, including reforming the Clean Water Act 401 and 404 processes, strengthening judicial review standards, streamlining National Environmental Policy Act reviews and liquefied natural gas export approvals, and removing the ability for courts to vacate or enjoin agency actions under NEPA.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed three strong bills last December that would address many of the permitting issues keeping us from delivering for the American people. The Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act, the Promoting Efficient Review for Modern Infrastructure Today Act, and the Improving Interagency Coordination for Pipeline Reviews Act all passed with bipartisan support. Those bills now await action in the Senate.
Recent events reinforce the need for the Senate to act swiftly. Utilities across the United States are already under stress during relatively normal winter seasons, and families are now regularly seeing their utility bills climb to their highest point in a generation.
And military actions in Venezuela and Iran have roiled global energy markets. While the price of gasoline has increased due to a lack of domestic supply, U.S. natural gas prices have remained low thanks to abundant domestic production and an independent market. Since the Middle East curtailed global natural gas supplies, Europe and Asia have seen natural gas prices over $20/million British thermal units, while U.S. prices remain near 17-month lows at around $3/MMBtu — the energy cost equivalent of less than 40 cents per gallon of gasoline.
As the world’s largest and most responsible producer of oil and natural gas, we need to unlock domestic energy production further and build the pipelines necessary to deliver cleaner, more affordable energy. Energy production and transportation are America’s superpower and our key to affordability and national security.
PERMITTING REFORM STALLED IN THE SENATE. HERE’S WHAT IS NEEDED TO PUSH IT THROUGH
Now is the time to act. Real permitting reform will allow U.S. companies and American workers to build and unlock our full potential. Unlock clean, reliable, and affordable natural gas. Unlock mining and critical minerals to build batteries, electric vehicles, and aerospace advancements. Unlock power generation and transmission lines to strengthen our grid and lower costs for consumers. Unlock domestic energy production and exports to enhance domestic security and ensure global allies get energy from America, and not from hostile suppliers that threaten our way of life.
American energy dominance, affordability, and security depend on it.
Chad Zamarin is president and CEO of Williams Companies.
