Republican Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso and Independent West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin rolled out their bipartisan permitting reform bill on Monday after many months of negotiation.
The two senators from energy-rich states unveiled the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 in a major step toward streamlining the process for building key new energy projects after Barrasso and Manchin spent nearly two years working on a permitting reform bill. If it becomes law, the bill will take multiple steps to cut red tape and expedite the construction timelines of fossil fuel and green energy projects and infrastructure.
“For far too long, Washington’s disastrous permitting system has shackled American energy production and punished families in Wyoming and across our country. Congress must step in and fix this process,” Barrasso said of the bill. “Our bipartisan bill secures future access to oil and gas resources on federal lands and waters. We fix the disastrous Rosemont decision so that we can produce more American minerals instead of relying on China. We permanently end President Biden’s reckless ban on natural gas exports. And we ensure we can strengthen our electric grid while protecting customers. This legislation is an urgent and important first step towards improving our nation’s broken permitting process.”
Specifically, the bill would do things like accelerate leasing and permitting for energy projects on federal lands, set deadlines for processing coal leasing applications and eliminate redundant permit requirements for drilling on non-federal lands. The bill would also require the federal government to hold at least one offshore wind and offshore oil lease each year from 2024 to 2029, streamline the process for building new transmission projects and mandate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to consider grid reliability impacts when assessing federal regulations.
The Biden administration is currently pursuing the most restrictive offshore oil and gas leasing schedule in modern American history for the years between 2024 and 2029. The two senators also included a rebuke to the Biden administration’s January pause on liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, which the bill would effectively end by requiring the energy secretary to issue approval or denial of relevant permits within 90 days of the conclusion of environmental reviews.
Permitting reform has become a key political issue in recent years, with Republicans looking to excise bureaucratic steps and stipulations that slow down fossil fuel infrastructure like pipelines, while some Democrats have shifted to believing that major permitting reform would be a boon to their green energy vision, a future that would require major buildouts of new projects and transmission infrastructure.
