The News
US lawmakers’ latest attempt at fixing the country’s dysfunctional energy permitting bureaucracy is inching forward this week, but disputes over the bill’s limits on executive power could dim its prospects of becoming law.
The SPEED Act, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Ark., and other Republicans, attempts to accelerate the federal environmental impact review process. To win support from Democrats, the bill would also limit the ability of federal agencies to revoke already-issued permits — a step that investors across the energy spectrum have called for as a remedy to the vicissitudes of US politics, whether it’s Joe Biden’s pause on LNG export terminal permitting or Donald Trump’s withdrawal of permits for wind projects.
But while the bill is supported by trade groups including the US Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, some of Trump’s allies in the House of Representatives’ Freedom Caucus are pushing to kill those “permit certainty” provisions. On Monday, the House Rules Committee said the full chamber can vote on amendments to the bill, ahead of a potential floor vote this week — but it’s not clear the fragile bipartisan coalition holding the legislation together can survive.
Tim’s view
Debate over permitting reform in the US used to hinge on the contest between renewables and fossil fuels; previous bills have often failed because of lawmakers’ inability to convince both sides of the aisle that cutting red tape for one technology won’t unduly help or hinder another.
In the Trump administration, the battle lines have shifted. Fossils vs. renewables is still an important point of contention, but what the SPEED Act reveals is a new split over executive power, with some Republicans willing to torpedo legislation that would tie Trump’s hands at all, even if doing so would also tie the hands of a future Democratic president to interfere against fossil fuel projects.
The SPEED Act’s main target is on environmental impact reviews conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act, imposing limits on when such reviews are required and how they can be challenged in court. But the bill’s best feature is also its most controversial, said Brandon Tuck, an environment-focused partner at the law firm Vinson & Elkins. The bill would prevent federal agencies from withdrawing previously issued permits for energy projects unless officials can demonstrate “specific, immediate, substantial, and proximate harm to life, property, national security, or defense,” from factors that weren’t already considered in the permitting process.
“That’s where I find the biggest practical impact for high-profile projects, which are most vulnerable to the shifting political winds,” Tuck said. “I see this language to be extremely helpful in increasing the confidence of investors and developers.”
In a letter to Westerman this month, a group of 30 House Democrats made clear that retaining “permit certainty” provisions is a prerequisite for their vote. The question is whether a debate of this issue, even if amendments to kill it aren’t adopted, will be enough to mollify enough Freedom Caucus members for the bill to pass — or if SPEED will be the latest permitting effort to crash and burn.
The View From The Senate
Even if the bill does pass in the House, it faces a much harder road ahead in the Senate. It’s unlikely that a sufficient number of Democrats would vote in favor to meet the Senate’s 60-vote majority threshold, without significantly scaling back the limits on environmental review that make the bill palatable to Republicans.
“We are facing an affordable energy crisis right now, and the path out requires us to build big things in America. But the SPEED Act won’t get us there,” Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., told Semafor. “This legislation from the House is a sweeping overhaul… that rushes environmental reviews, sidelines community input, and paradoxically invites more litigation and delay — all while failing to meaningfully address skyrocketing energy costs and the need to build out and modernize our electrical grid.”
