Trump’s Energy Agenda Has Taken Over Congress’ Permitting Reform Ambitions

The House just passed one of its biggest permitting reform moves in years. A last-minute addition undermining wind projects cost the proposal much of its Democratic support.

Most Republicans and 11 Democrats voted Thursday to pass the SPEED Act, which would reduce the level of environmental review required to build infrastructure under the National Environmental Policy Act. Both parties have pointed to the environmental statute as one of the biggest barriers to development in the country.

But some Democrats ultimately backed out of backing the bill after conservative Republicans added an amendment that exempts offshore wind projects from the reforms.

“The majority had a great opportunity here. Democrats were ready to work with them on meaningful bipartisan permitting reform and they chose to reject our efforts to engage in good faith,” Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said ahead of the vote on the bill.

The conservatives also stripped out Rep. Jared Golden’s provision that would have granted certainty for existing permits — an apparent attempt to stop the Trump administration from revoking approvals for offshore wind projects approved under past administrations.

What Democrats were once billing as “progress” became another way for the Trump administration to run “political interference” against renewable energy projects, Democratic Rep. Scott Peters said.

“I was really disappointed this week that some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, after seeing that good bipartisan progress, decided to force this bill in the other direction this week to satisfy grievances and score political points,” Peters said ahead of the vote.

He told NOTUS after voting against the legislation that “there’s some good things in the bill that people want” and that “everybody also knows that this isn’t the final draft, that there’s more work to do.”

The amendment exempting offshore wind from permitting reform measures was introduced by Rep. Andy Harris, the House Freedom Caucus chair, and helped garner support for the legislation from a contingent of conservatives who were holding out over worries that the bill could speed up renewable energy permitting.

The amendment aligns with a slate of actions that the Trump administration has taken this year to stymie the wind industry, many of which have been spurred or cheered by members of the Freedom Caucus.

The anti-wind language and the removal of the permit certainty language were not dealbreakers for some Democrats. Golden voted for the bill even though it lacked his permit certainty measure.

So did Rep. Marc Veasey, who told NOTUS that “anything for Texas in particular that we can do around this issue would be huge” and “would just help our economy.”

He added that he decided to vote in favor of the measure because he does not think the changes made by conservatives are final.

“I think a lot of that will be fixed on the Senate side,” Veasey said. “I think whatever comes back over will be something that will look more like what we had originally worked out.”

Some major groups that supported the SPEED Act also withdrew their support after the offshore wind amendment was announced this week, with the stipulation that the bill’s fate in the Senate could move the needle.

“We look forward to working with Senate leaders to restore the balanced, technology-neutral approach that can actually become law,” the American Clean Power Association said in a statement withdrawing its support.

But the SPEED Act’s uncertain future in the Senate bodes badly for permitting reform hopefuls.

Three key Democratic senators said this month that they won’t support a bill that doesn’t include language on building more transmission infrastructure — something several House Democrats also want included.

But Rep. Chip Roy, one of the lawmakers who came around on the bill after Golden’s amendment was stripped out and the anti-offshore-wind provision was added, told reporters earlier this week it would concern him if the Senate includes transmission-centered language, setting up the possibility of a renewed fight on the legislation if it makes its way back to the House.

Republicans who championed the bill, meanwhile, acknowledged that it will likely change.

“If it was the United States of Bruce Westerman and I was writing this bill, it wouldn’t look like it was today,” Rep. Bruce Westerman said. “But I think we got to a point where we had input from many, many people, and we got the best bill we could get passed out of the House.”