If the Democratic Party is serious about rebuilding its working-class brand in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s landslide reelection, it should prove that it can be the party that builds things again. Namely, by supporting bipartisan permitting reform in the lame-duck Congress.
Sens. Joe Manchin (I-WV) and John Barrasso (R-WY) have been working in conjunction with House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) for months on the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024. This legislation is designed to ease the construction of much-needed energy infrastructure.
The Senate version of the bill, which passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a 15-4 bipartisan basis, would create a 150-day statute of limitations for all legal challenges to any energy infrastructure project and set a 180-day deadline for federal agency action when a project is challenged in court. The bill also allows federal regulators to coordinate energy transmission projects across state lines, encourages the development of geothermal energy, and repeals President Joe Biden’s ban on liquefied natural gas exports.
Barrasso and Westerman want to go even further, adding major reform of the National Environmental Policy Act to the deal. That includes limiting the scope of environmental reviews, stricter standards for determining who can sue to stop an infrastructure project pursuant to the act, and new limits on what effects from climate change can be considered during the permitting process.
Ideally, the NEPA would be repealed entirely as it has repeatedly been used by environmental extremists to shut down construction projects since its inception in 1970. After the Supreme Court sided with activists in stopping construction of the Tellico Dam in Tennessee, it took a special act of Congress to get the project restarted.
If Democrats want to show they are not beholden to “the groups,” then the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 is an ideal vehicle for them to do so. When the bill passed the House Natural Resources Committee, Public Citizen called the bill “nothing short of the first steps to implement the radical corporate giveaway agenda espoused in Project 2025, a sweeping far-right initiative led by the Heritage Foundation.” Over 350 far-left nonprofit organizations signed a letter condemning this bipartisan reform.
If Democrats do get cold feet and do not want to pass the Manchin-Barrasso permitting reform bill, then the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are sure to attempt a full repeal of the NEPA through reconciliation next year. The Senate parliamentarian cut earlier versions of permitting reform out of the Inflation Reduction Act, but that was a partisan Democratic bill and most Democratic senators did not want the permitting reforms in there.
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A full repeal of the NEPA would have a much larger budgetary impact since it would significantly reduce the cost of and time to complete all federal infrastructure projects. A united conference would also be more willing to work with the parliamentarian to identify language that would pass reconciliation muster.
Ideally, permitting reform would pass through the normal legislative process on a bipartisan basis. Democrats have the chance to do that now. If they don’t, they may find themselves with much more partisan and far-reaching reforms passed without a single Democratic vote next year.