There's a good story in E&E News today about renewed permitting reform negotiations this Congress. It mentions that they'll use the Energy Permitting Reform Act as a starting point. It will be a challenge because a lot of the key positions in congressional committees are now held by different MOCs than they were last year. Some are very receptive to the need for permitting reform and well-versed in bipartisan negotiations, others less so.
@Dana Nuccitelli Good article. I hope to see a lot more discussion of permitting reform on these pages.
I hope that the fact that we (CLL) supported the last version of permitting reform does not mean we are automatically locked into throwing our support behind future versions similarly labeled. While there is a real need for this reform I have two major concerns.
First, the permitting reform work needs to be truly bipartisan. Especially now, we could very easily see a situation where the reform is far more beneficial to carbon producing projects than carbon reducing ones resulting in a major net worsening of our climate goals.
Second, for the foreseeable future, achieving our climate goals (and the other environmental preservation goals most of us share) will be much more dependent on legal action than we envisioned last year. Therefore we should be more mindful about reducing those protections.
Last month I, along with many of you, took a deep dive into the permitting reform aspects of the Fix our Forests Act. In the end there were some aspects I was uncomfortable with but overall it appeared likely to positively benefit climate and health. That conclusion was largely based on my confidence in the professionalism of the people at the National Forest Service and similar agencies. With the competent professionals being dismissed and the agencies being politicized that confidence is lost. There is increased need for legal scrutiny and procedural rigor.
Very challenging work ahead.
E&E has another story on this subject, as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had a hearing on permitting reform. There was a lot of bipartisan agreement that it's important to expedite permitting processes so we can build infrastructure faster. Senator Whitehouse also reportedly said:
that Democrats would go nowhere near a deal to overhaul the nation's permitting laws until the Trump administration ends its “lawless regard for congressional authority and judicial orders … “We can have zero confidence that any legislative compromise on permitting reform will be executed lawfully."
Which, in my personal opinion, is a totally valid position. But it will be interesting to see what it will take for Senate Democrats to feel comfortable that the Trump administration will execute permitting reforms lawfully.
@Dana Nuccitelli
That question is easy, Ds will never be comfortable. But we still have to try.
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