Weekly Briefing: Permitting reform ramps up

July 29, 2025

With the budget reconciliation process complete, Congress can now turn its attention to other priorities. One of those is permitting reform, which is critical to speeding up America's clean energy development.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA-01) said in an interview last week that “GOP leadership will work on advancing long-awaited permitting reform legislation this fall,” Politico reported. And rather than pursuing a partisan process like reconciliation, Rep. Scalise said they are working toward “a standalone bill that, ideally, would be the product of a bipartisan deal with Democrats.”

And in another positive development, House Reps. Bruce Westerman (R-AR-04) and Jared Golden (D-ME-02) introduced the bipartisan SPEED Act (HR 4776) last week. The bill is written to speed permitting reviews and limit legal challenges for projects under the National Environmental Policy Act. CCL liaisons to these offices are reaching out with messages of appreciation for these members’ leadership on permitting reform.

The SPEED Act is not a comprehensive bill, though, so we aren’t going to be advocating for it — it doesn’t include significant transmission reform, technology specific reforms, or community engagement pieces that are important to a comprehensive permitting reform bill.

Still, this is an encouraging step forward, showing the bipartisan engagement on permitting reform. We will continue to work toward a comprehensive permitting reform bill, and we’re glad that Republican and Democratic offices are at the table and actively engaged in these discussions.

Send a message to your members of Congress today, encouraging them to work with their colleagues toward a permitting reform package that will help unlock America’s clean energy potential.

Contact Congress

In other news this week:

File your meeting notes: We’re still gathering the meeting notes from our 402 lobby meetings on Capitol Hill last week. Your notes are critical to our Government Affairs team as they work with offices on climate action throughout the year. Log your meeting notes using CCL’s Action Tracker, or send a quick reminder to your lobby team’s notetaker to log them.

New podcast talks permitting reform and carbon pricing: Last Friday’s episode of The Ezra Klein Show featured Jesse Jenkins, a climate modeler who leads the ZERO lab at Princeton, and Jane Flegal, a former member of the Biden administration’s climate policy team. The episode is an interesting, valuable discussion touching on several topics relevant to our work here at CCL. They discuss:

• the climate and clean energy progress America made with the Inflation Reduction Act

• the importance of permitting reform for clean energy

• the possibility that domestic carbon pricing could eventually be part of a comprehensive tax reform package.

Read the transcript or listen to the episode here.

Take action this week

If you have a little time: See and share social posts from CCL’s Summer Conference. Last week was another incredible CCL Summer Conference and Lobby Day in D.C. Make sure you’ve caught up on some of the highlights we shared on social media, like the inspiring opening message from our Interim Executive Director, Ricky Bradley, and seeing our volunteers in action at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

If you have more time: Brush up on your understanding of permitting reform. With permitting reform coming back to the forefront of our advocacy in the coming months, you might need a refresher on the basics — what exactly is it, and why is it important for climate? Check out our Clean Energy Permitting Reform Overview training to brush up on your understanding of this policy area.

Featured chapter: CCL Orange County South - See their feature on CCL's blog!





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