HOUSTON, Texas — White House adviser
John Podesta
said passing energy permitting reform is a “top priority” for the
Biden administration
as House Republicans move legislation through committee that would seek to speed up environmental reviews of energy projects.
Podesta, who is charged with helping to oversee implementation with Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act, expressed frustration that lawmakers
were unable to pass
measures during the last Congress to accelerate the environmental review, permitting, and construction of energy infrastructure, especially renewable energy and electric transmission.
The country has no time to waste on speeding up project construction in order to meet the administration’s climate change goals, he said during remarks at CERAWeek by S&P Global, an annual energy conference in Houston.
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“Permitting has never been a top priority of senior administration officials in the past,” Podesta said, referencing his experience serving in three presidential administrations. “Now, thanks to President Biden, it is.”
President Joe Biden
endorsed
Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) permitting bill during the last Congress, which would have sought to speed up permitting and construction of projects such as natural gas pipelines, wind farms, and transmission lines.
“Far too many projects face delays — keeping us from generating critical, cost-saving energy needed by families and businesses across America,” Biden said at the time.
Speeding up project approval and construction has wide support among Democrats and Republicans, but significant disagreement remains over which projects to prioritize and how aggressively to reform key environmental laws governing project reviews, such as the National Environmental Policy Act.
House Republicans, who are
advancing their own permitting reform measures
through committee, prefer more intensive reforms to NEPA, while Democrats are warier of significant rewrites.
Podesta said the administration is prioritizing electric transmission and said the provisions in Manchin’s bill, which in part sought to expand the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to intervene and speed up transmission projects deemed in the national interest, were especially valuable.
Many liberal Democrats
opposed Manchin’s bill
due to it favoring fossil fuel projects alongside renewable energy, although most of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate supported the bill when it came up for a vote.
Senate Republicans largely voted against the bill, despite their general support for reform, in some cases because of the bill’s merits
and in others due to the political circumstances
.
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Senate leadership has yet to revive Manchin’s permitting effort, although House Republicans such as House Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR)
have been discussing the issue with him
.
