As a vote on the debt-ceiling deal approaches, House Republican leadership is touting the “transformative permitting-reform provisions” that are part of the bill.
In a call with National Review and other publications, Representative Garret Graves (R., La.), who was tapped to lead the negotiations, explained that the reforms represent the first time Congress has pursued any substantial changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in over 40 years.
“This is all about unlocking America’s resources. This is about improving the competitiveness of the U.S. economy, and not getting bogged down in the 115 lawsuits a year that are filed against NEPA, taking on average 3.5 years and in the majority of cases actually going in favor of government or the original permit decision,” Graves said.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.), also on the call, explained that the bill addresses these lawsuits that are intended to force more studies and delay permits.
Scalise added that in the scenario when multiple agencies are involved in a single permit application, one agency will be designated to coordinate the permit. This would prevent parties from gaming the system, pursuing different filings for the purpose of delaying.
He added that the bill would also create a shot clock: one year for an environmental assessment and 2 years for environmental-impact statements.
“There is going to be an end in sight,” explained Scalise. “Today, there is no end in sight. It ends up killing a lot of good projects.”
Another section of the bill adopts categorical exclusion, which will reduce the need for multiple agencies to implement reviews and thereby cut red tape. There is also a section of the bill that prevents local projects from being wrongly defined as falling under a federal purview. The result is that fewer projects will have to go through the federal permitting process. “This bill gives real relief,” Scalise explained.
Graves added that he’s seen in his own experience the damage that NEPA causes to road projects, with construction itself often taking fewer than two years, but the NEPA process taking seven.
He explained that environmental assessments and environmental-impact statements will be limited in terms of pages — 75 and 150 respectively. The Trump administration’s One Federal Decision, which streamlined environmental reviews, is codified into law by this bill and there is also an important change to the threshold for an environmental review. The scope of a NEPA analysis is now narrowed to what is reasonably foreseeable.
Graves explained that while there may be an expectation that this bill will hurt the environment, the contrary is true. The bill puts the focus on environmental issues more clearly and not on all of the ancillary issues that NEPA has grown to focus on.
Graves and Representative Bruce Westerman (R., Ark.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, explained that House Republicans will continue to pursue permitting reform in the future, including more work on pipelines, which are often moored in years of litigation, and power transmission.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) has pledged to President Joe Biden that subsequent discussions will take place on the remaining permitting reform that’s needed.
While the bill provides for a new study of how regional power-transmission capabilities can be boosted, Graves explained further action on this issue was not on the table because there’s no legislative history on the subject and Republicans would like to address it carefully.
Scalise added that the separate regulatory-reform measure — the REINS Act — will soon come to the House floor for action.
Representative Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.), chair of the House Republican Conference, also praised the deal, explaining it “will allow us to build more infrastructure, produce more energy in America, and lower costs for hard-working American families, small businesses, manufacturers, and farms.”
“As you talk to energy producers, other leaders in the infrastructure sector, this will be transformative getting America back to work and again lowering energy costs,” she added.
In a statement to National Review, Todd Snitchler, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA), praised the ongoing efforts to reform permitting.
“EPSA has been very supportive of efforts to reform permitting and siting as a part of ensuring America’s energy future and to help secure power system reliability. We are encouraged to see movement on the issue in Congress as part of ongoing debt ceiling negotiations,” he said.