Permitting Reform Is Good for People and the Planet – What Is Congress Waiting For?
“Amid a contentious debate over the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act with the White House, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin recently reintroduced his controversial permitting reform.”
Permitting Reform Is Good for People and the Planet – What Is Congress Waiting For?
By Danielle Butcher Franz
May 03, 2023
Amid a contentious debate over the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) with the White House, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin recently reintroduced his controversial permitting reform bill.
Of course, for Beltway energy policy wonks, streamlining America’s energy permitting process has been top of mind and on the tip of tongues since, well, forever. But, Senator Manchin’s proposal puts the topic at the top of headlines.
This discourse should be action. For every week that Congress doesn’t pass comprehensive permitting reform that the President would be willing to sign, energy projects – most of them clean energy projects – are sitting in regulatory limbo.
Following the passage of the IRA last summer, a Princeton study estimated that a stunning 80 percent of the estimated emissions reductions promised by the IRA won’t come to pass without significant reform to our energy permitting process. This whopping number spread beyond energy policy wonks and caught the attention of both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
Since the start of the 118th Congress, both the House and Senate have held hearings and mark-ups on permitting reform. The House Republicans’ Lower Energy Costs Act, which garnered four Democratic votes in its passage, included key permitting reform elements. House Democrats countered last month with a bill that would speed up the approval of transmission and clean energy projects with community involvement.
Still, for permitting reform to make it through the Senate, it must be the result of bipartisan negotiations. Last week, the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee once again reiterated the importance of permitting reform for climate and energy goals, and House Natural Resources is in Minnesota this week to discuss permitting reform for the raw materials we need for clean energy.
Those who work in the space need not be reminded that the average NEPA review promises an average of 4.5 years in delays and $4.2 million in added costs. No, for those looking to build a clean energy future here in the United States, it’s clear our biggest hurdle is regulatory red tape.
While the term “permitting reform” may not ring a bell for everyday Americans, its effects will be more than noticeable. Serious permitting reform has several tangible outcomes, and these outcomes stand to benefit the communities we love. Permitting reform means new construction jobs and increased energy production. Increased production means abundant, affordable, and increasingly clean energy. As I wrote late last year, “...permitting reform is a rare win-win for both the economy and the environment.”
For climate advocates like myself, permitting reform is also crucial to give the United States a fighting chance at achieving climate goals. To reduce future emissions, we need the ability to build clean infrastructure – not just in theory, but in practice. When Congress allocates money toward clean energy investments, the last place Americans expect it to go is the court system – and yet – thanks to our onerous permitting process, this happens all too often. If our goal is more wind, solar, nuclear, hydropower, and geothermal on the grid, we must approve their project applications responsibly and expeditiously. As it stands, these projects are often delayed more than their fossil fuel counterparts. Take Unit 3 at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, which is expected to come online this year – 15 years after the permit application was originally submitted.
It’s evident that for both people and the planet, we must commit to building cleaner, faster.
While carving out a compromise on energy permitting between congressional Republicans and Democrats will not be an easy task, it is a fight worth having, and soon. The United States is home to world-renowned innovators, builders, and entrepreneurs – it is time we allow them the license to build our clean energy future.
Danielle Butcher Franz is the executive vice president at the American Conservation Coalition (ACC). Follow her on Twitter @DaniSButcher