President Joe Biden has reversed Trump-era reforms to modernize the federal permitting process. But the decision could undermine the administration’s own clean energy goals by making it more difficult to permit clean energy infrastructure at a time when we should be building more clean energy faster.
In 2020, the Trump administration modernized federal permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act, the first major update in 40 years. Enacted in 1970, NEPA requires federal agencies to assess the environmental impact of major projects.
Unfortunately, good policy in the 1970s has not kept pace with the times. The NEPA process today often means federal permitting can take five to 10 years and cost millions of dollars. This undermines our ability to build more clean energy rapidly to reduce emissions, grow the economy, and reduce dependence on foreign energy.
It’s important to note that the 2020 reforms did not change our strict environmental standards. They were designed to produce more efficient NEPA reviews and more timely decisions, setting a two-year goal for completing environmental reviews while upholding America’s strong environmental safeguards. Simply put, the reforms made it easier to build clean energy infrastructure, while this reversal will make it more difficult.
The decision could not come at a worse time. The bipartisan infrastructure law that was enacted last November provided unprecedented funding for energy infrastructure, including upgrades to the nation’s electric grid and investments in innovative clean energy technologies, including advanced nuclear, carbon capture, clean hydrogen, and energy storage.
Investments in reliable, clean power will reduce emissions and strengthen the nation’s international competitiveness, but the private sector can only build and renew energy projects as quickly as the permitting process allows.
For example, a recent report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that it takes an average of 7.6 years to re-license existing hydropower facilities, which generate more than 37% of our renewable electricity. The Department of Energy has said the “extensive” regulatory process for hydropower can “increase the cost, risk, and timeline of licensing hydroelectric plants.”
The United States also needs to modernize permitting to build a domestic supply chain of critical minerals. By 2040, demand for energy-related minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite could grow by 20 to 40 times, according to the International Energy Agency. Unfortunately, our critical mineral supply chains are largely controlled by foreign adversaries, including China and Russia.
The Biden administration recently declared battery-related critical minerals a national security priority by invoking the Cold War-era Defense Production Act. The move was applauded by many, yet invoking the DPA does not streamline the permitting process. And in some cases, Biden’s administration is still working to delay and block new mining projects that will be essential if, for example, many more people are going to be driving electric vehicles, as Biden has himself suggested.
For example, the Trump administration renewed mineral leases for the Twin Metals project in northeastern Minnesota in 2018. This project would provide a stable domestic source of nickel outside of Russia at a time when nickel prices have gone haywire due to its invasion of Ukraine. But in January 2022, Biden’s Interior Department canceled those mineral leases. But such clean energy projects as this one are a matter of national security, so the federal permitting process must keep pace with the need to build faster.
There are several commonsense steps we can take to streamline federal permitting. First, we should fast-track projects where impacts are well understood. Second, for projects with local impacts, we should still speed up the process but focus the review on the local conditions. These projects should benefit from accelerated decision timelines to get to a “yes” or “no” decision within two years. Third, limit legal action to under one year.
Modernized permitting is a key pillar of any climate policy. It can be done while upholding existing environmental protections with robust public participation. The key is allowing U.S. entrepreneurs to build clean energy faster.
Alex Fitzsimmons, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy, is a Senior Program Director at ClearPath.
