Congress is back in Washington this week facing a lengthy list of priorities before the end of the year, but toward the top of the agenda should be swiftly passing bipartisan permitting reform. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (BAAJA) represents one of the most consequential pieces of legislation Congress could send to the president’s desk this session. Passing BAAJA would be a meaningful step toward restoring common sense to the federal permitting process, unleashing private investment, creating jobs, and making it easier and more affordable to build the infrastructure America needs.
The need for permitting reform is serious. An increasingly complex web of government red tape suffocates investment and makes it unnecessarily difficult, costly, and time-consuming to build in America. From oil refineries and wind farms to interstate highways and advanced manufacturing facilities, projects that could strengthen our economy, create good-paying jobs, and improve Americans’ quality of life are routinely subjected to years of regulatory delays.
In some cases, securing an energy permit can take more than four and a half years, while approval for a new transmission line can take as long as eight years. These prolonged delays drive up project costs, discourage investment, and ultimately leave consumers and utility ratepayers footing the bill through higher energy prices.
Fortunately, Senate Republicans and Democrats have come together around a bipartisan opportunity to fix this broken system and unleash American economic growth. BAAJA represents a rare, potentially once-in-a-generation opportunity to rein in federal bureaucracy, remove unnecessary barriers to investment, and get the government out of the way of responsible development. The legislation deserves swift consideration and passage so it can reach the president’s desk without delay.
BAAJA includes many important provisions that NTU has advocated for over the years. Specifically, it ensures future administrations cannot simply cancel projects that are approved. That means pipeline companies can build energy infrastructure without fear that a Democratic president will kill their project. Likewise for clean energy projects like wind and solar that could face threats from a Republican president. No one wins from tit-for-tat energy policy. Projects of this scale are capital-intensive, requiring billions of dollars in upfront costs and often take years—or even decades—to recover.
The bill also finally ends “lawfare,” a tactic employed by anti-energy radicals to gum up the permitting process. Currently, lawsuits challenging National Environmental Policy Act reviews can be filed up to six years after a permit approval. This leaves agencies and developers uncertain long after the review has been completed and a permit issued. Consider the Dakota Access Pipeline, which, until recently, was stuck in limbo for almost a decade due to unserious legal challenges. It’s a similar story for SunZia, the largest renewable project in the country.
BAAJA establishes a 150-day statute of limitations for challenging federal agency approvals of energy and mineral projects. That means companies spend less time tied up in courtrooms and more time building the infrastructure America needs.
Additionally, BAAJA includes:
- Reforming the Clean Water Act (CWA): Promoting regulatory certainty by refocusing Section 401 certifications on water quality and ending preemptive and retroactive vetoes under the EPA Administrator’s Section 404(c) authority.
- Modernizing the Endangered Species Act (ESA): Providing states with greater flexibility to conduct Section 7 consultations and ensuring ESA determinations are grounded in the best available science.
- Advancing complementary permitting reforms: Reforming transmission policy to ensure the electric grid can meet growing demand, streamlining the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), unlocking America’s geothermal energy potential, and providing greater certainty in the mining permitting process.
There is growing Beltway speculation that last week’s election results could derail this hard-fought agreement. Even Hakeem Jeffries, the likely next Speaker of the House, has suggested the deal falls short of what his conference wants and that Democrats will seek a “better” agreement in the next Congress.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. This agreement represents the best possible outcome for taxpayers, the clean and fossil fuel energy industries, and the countless businesses forced to navigate an increasingly complex federal regulatory system. Delaying action now would risk squandering a rare bipartisan opportunity and could seriously jeopardize the prospects of reaching another agreement anytime soon.
Permitting reform won’t lead to lower energy prices today, but it will help us meet future energy needs. It means extracting underground oil faster, building more efficient refineries to turn oil into gasoline, and utilizing abundant solar and wind energy to power our homes and businesses. The sooner this bill can get to the president’s desk, the sooner energy developers can build again and Americans can enjoy the abundant, cheap energy they deserve.