SPEED Act advancing in the House
The SPEED Act passed out of the House Committee on Natural Resources yesterday. Congrats, lobby teams! This is from today's Heatmap:
The Trump administration announced plans Thursday to open nearly 1.3 billion acres of waters on the Americans coasts to oil and gas drilling. The Department of the Interior proposed holding as many as 34 lease sales, including six off California and in a remote region of Alaska in the northern Arctic where drilling has never taken place. The New York Times called the plan one of President Trump’s most significant steps yet to increase the production of fossil fuels, the burning of which is dangerously heating the planet.”
The move comes months after the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management rescinded the designation of just 3.5 million acres of federal waters to offshore wind development, as I reported here at the time. The administration went on to halt work on active projects and file lawsuits to try to yank back already-granted permits for offshore turbines. Even the oil industry came to wind developers’ defense, arguing that President Donald Trump was setting a dangerous precedent, as I wrote here last month. |
|
2. House advances permitting reform bill |
That’s what makes a particular measure in the permitting reform bill that passed out of the House Committee on Natural Resources last night so eye catching. The bipartisan SPEED Act — which Heatmap’s Jael Holzman described as doing “stuff energy developers of all stripes say they want” including “time-clocks on when federal permits are issued and deadlines on when court challenges can be filed” — advanced out of committee on a vote of 25 to 18. Surprisingly, Republicans voted in favor of a bill that included language explicitly saying federal agencies cannot revoke, suspend, alter, or interfere with any already-approved permit of an energy project. Halting the assault on offshore wind has long been a Democratic condition for passing the legislation, though top administration officials have balked at the idea of easing off the wind industry. |
Search Forums
Forum help
Select a question below
CCL Community Guidelines
- Discuss, ask and share
- Be respectful
- Respect confidentiality
- Protect privacy
CCL Blog Policy Area Categories
- Price on Carbon
- CBAM
- Clean Energy Permitting Reform
- Healthy Forests
- Building Electrification and Efficiency
