While many Americans were distracted by summer vacation, violent heat waves, and news about President Joe Biden’s decision to bail out of his re-election campaign, Senators Joe Manchin and John Barrasso announced a permitting reform bill that would dramatically alter the processes for reviewing the impacts of energy projects in the United States.
Their proposal – the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 – includes limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking LNG permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants.
Manchin and Barrasso, chairman and ranking member, also include several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects but it was panned by environmentalists.
“This bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels,” said Alexandra Adams, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) managing director of government affairs. “We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry.
“We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it,” said Adams. “While this bill would offer some steps forward on transmission reform, which we hope to help usher forward, this bill would altogether be a leap backward on climate, health, and justice if passed into law. The Senate should reject it and look toward alternative solutions already being considered.”
“Congress must reject this legislation, which would open up federal lands and waters to more leasing and drilling,” said Lisa McCormick, a New Jersey environmentalist best known for her spirited challenge to Senator Bob Menendez in the 2018 Democratic primary election. “It would unnecessarily rush the review of proposed gas export projects, forcing decisions to be based on flawed, outdated studies.”
“Manchin has enormous influence over federal climate policy and he has used that power to shield the pollution that helped build his family coal business, which is run by his son Joe Manchin IV,” said McCormick. “Barrasso is a foe of climate regulations from a leading fossil-powered state who has made a career as a defender of the pollution industry.”
“Those who promote this kind of so-called ‘permitting reform’ claim that it’s necessary to accelerate the deployment of clean energy, but in truth this is nothing more than yet another attempt by fossil fuel industry boosters to give handouts for polluters at the expense of our communities and the climate,” said Sierra Club Policy Director Mahyar Sorour. “We urge Congress to put forward real solutions to build a clean energy economy, and not pair those reforms with more attempts to pad the pockets of fossil fuel executives under the guise of reducing emissions.”
In 2023, NRDC released its roadmap to progressive permitting reform, “Down to the Wire: Progressive Permitting Reforms Will Accelerate Renewable Energy and Transmission Buildout and Help Meet U.S. Climate Targets.”
The report lays out a strategy for achieving this clean energy deployment that manages clean energy development and project opposition without gutting foundational environmental protections. This includes early community engagement, increased federal staffing to accelerate reviews and “smart from the start” approaches that identify appropriate areas for clean energy deployment.
The report provides a path to break through bottlenecks and strengthen engagement, without rolling back safeguards for frontline communities, ecosystems, and species.
Congressional Republicans have consistently supported expediting the permitting process for fossil fuel projects to grow domestic energy production and enhance the United States’ energy security.
The Trump administration significantly narrowed the application of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a fixture of the federal permitting process but that action that was later reversed by the Biden-Harris administration.
In 2023, Republicans negotiated modest reforms to NEPA as a part of the debt ceiling package.
Washington’s permitting reform discussions ramped up in 2022 after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Manchin he would pass legislation aimed at speeding up the buildout of energy and infrastructure projects in exchange for Manchin’s vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats’ climate tax and health care bill.
The Manchin-Barrasso bill is the product of over a year of hearings and bipartisan negotiations. It is a compromise that includes provisions that will benefit both fossil fuel and clean energy projects.
However, it is noteworthy that Manchin formally left the Democratic Party earlier this year and that the fossil fuel–related provisions he negotiated are viewed unfavorably by some members of his former party and their allies in the environmental community.
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