The Trump administration is escalating its call for Congress to pass legislation that would accelerate federal approvals for energy and infrastructure projects, but it is stopping short of giving assurances to Democrats that renewables will fairly benefit from any reforms.
Reforming the permitting process has been a top priority for this Congress, as Republicans and Democratic lawmakers have seen clean energy, fossil fuel, and other infrastructure-related projects in their districts hamstrung by lengthy environmental reviews and court challenges.
Progress was made in the House before the end of last year, with the lower chamber advancing the bipartisan Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act, which looks to simplify the National Environmental Policy Act.
Negotiations stalled just days later, however, when the Interior Department paused leases for five under-construction offshore wind farms — heightening Democratic fears that the Trump administration would not fairly implement bipartisan permitting reform once passed.
While all five projects have been granted permission by federal courts to resume construction, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has indicated that party leaders need commitments from the executive before moving forward with negotiations again.
Few administration officials have directly addressed the Democrats’ holdout, though President Donald Trump’s permitting chief, Emily Domenech, head of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, chided the resistance on Tuesday.
“I would say if Republicans had made President [Joe] Biden approving pipelines a condition of coming to the table for permitting reform, we would have no fiscal responsibility backed, and there would be no bills that are here today,” Domenech told the Washington Examiner on the sidelines of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s permitting summit.
Domenech emphasized that as the head of the permitting council, she is not the “policy arm” of the White House, but rather more an executor of the administration’s agenda to accelerate the permitting process.
In this role, she is looking for two major components in any legislation put before Congress this year: addressing judicial review and the Clean Water Act.
“The reality is, NEPA is just the start,” Domenech said. “I think it would be wonderful to see some of these bills get enacted, but, you know, there’s a lot more work to do and a lot of other ways that environmental activists come and try to stop projects. And we have to kind of be one step ahead if we want to make sure we can build things and be like China.”
With negotiations in flux, Domenech said the administration is not “waiting around” for Congress to pass a substantial bill addressing permitting reform.
“This administration is using every tool in the toolbox, from updating outdated regs to utilizing nationwide permits and categorical exclusions where they’re appropriate, to empowering the Permitting Council … to move permits faster and get more infrastructure built,” she said in remarks during the summit.
In the meantime, other administration officials have also upped their public calls for Congress to act and pass meaningful legislation.
In early January, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin lunched with congressional Republicans on Capitol Hill, where he discussed policy recommendations for a number of issues, including permitting reform.
“Talks today ranged from key aspects of the Clean Air Act to the Clean Water Act, including challenges and opportunities where EPA can streamline federal permitting processes, consistent with Administrator Zeldin’s Powering the Great American Comeback initiative,” an EPA spokesperson said of the meeting in a statement to E&E News at the time.
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And during another Tuesday event held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said speeding up the permitting process is something that the administration has to do.
“If we want to supercharge the U.S. economy, one of the things we have to do is speed up permitting,” Burgum said. “And it’s not about new capital, it’s getting the capital that’s already been approved actually being deployed.”
Maydeen Merino contributed to this report.
