Hearings to examine improving the Federal environmental review and permitting processes.
Committee on Environment and Public Works
2025-02-19
Source: Congress.gov
Summary
The Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the need to modernize federal environmental review and permitting processes, addressing chronic delays that hinder critical infrastructure projects. Witnesses, including industry leaders and environmental advocates, highlighted how redundant reviews, inconsistent regulations, and lengthy litigation stall projects in energy, housing, and transportation. Key issues discussed include the inefficiencies of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the burdens of Clean Water Act 404 permits, and the urgent need to expand transmission capacity to meet growing energy demands. The panel emphasized that permitting reform must be bipartisan, transparent, and focused on streamlining without weakening environmental protections, advocating for tools like categorical exclusions, permit-by-rule frameworks, and state primacy programs. The hearing concluded with a call for concrete, durable reforms that provide certainty for businesses and communities across sectors.
Participants
Transcript
Shake your hands, I'll do that as we move through. I apologize for being a few minutes late. So I want to start with my opening statement and then I'll go to the ranking member and then we'll have our witnesses. So good morning again and thank you all for being here. Very nice for you to come on such a critical issue to our nation's future, the need to modernize our federal environmental review and permitting processes, something we've talked about endlessly, both to grow our economy and also to improve our environmental stewardship. So I'm really excited about this hearing. Our witnesses will share their valuable perspectives and set the stage for the EPW's committee work on this important topic. To ensure we take a holistic view of these issues, we will keep this morning's hearing record open until March 21st to give all stakeholders the opportunity to share their experiences with the existing environmental review and permitting processes, identify challenges, and then hopefully to suggest potential solutions. For too long, critical projects such as energy and infrastructure along with industrial projects as well, have been trapped in a cycle of redundant reviews, shifting goalposts and regulatory uncertainty. In my home state of West Virginia, I've seen firsthand how these drive up in costs, these delays, not just for the projects, but for the American families who are paying for more energy, housing, and food as a result. Meanwhile, businesses lack the certainty necessary to make long-term investments, which can mean lost jobs, missed economic opportunities for communities, scarcity, and higher prices across the nation. It can also mean that the projects needed to deploy renewable energies or to restore the environment are also stilted. The framework for our environmental review and permitting process is grounded in landmark laws
under this committee's jurisdiction. NEPA requires federal agencies to consider environmental impacts on federally funded projects or before implementing their project. Other environmental and resource laws like the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act rely on permits and operational requirements to ensure that critical projects are able to come to fruition in environmentally responsible ways. However, Years of changes in guidance and regulations, administration to administration, and a complex web of judicial rulings have resulted in ever expanding hodgepodge of often duplicative and contradictory requirements. While this confusing and complex body of administrative and common law has grown over the past century, Congress has not stepped in to provide the holistic clarifications and modernizations. In the absence of congressional action, certain parties have found creative ways to use the judicial process to delay, remand, or strike down projects and raise costs to discourage project sponsors from moving forward. As a result, environmental review and permitting processes have increased costs and delayed or stopped projects, including projects that would help achieve the goals in our environmental laws. Last week, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee heard testimony from NUCOR about how The need to obtain a Clean Water Act permit triggered significant delays based on required reviews under the Endangered Species Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. These permitting delays nearly thwarted what will be among the most environmentally friendly steel production facilities in the world, and that will employ over 1,000 people in Mason County, West Virginia. It literally took an act of Congress to permit the Mountain Valley Pipeline to move clean natural gas from West Virginia to our southern neighbors, and I'm sure they're loving it today as the temperatures are dipping.
I heard it's two degrees in Austin, and it's snowing to beat the band in West Virginia right now, so it's cold everywhere. What is it in, I don't even... 47 below. 47 below, okay. Sorry, Austin, you just got... Tripped. OK. Quarter H and Coalfield Expressways, two top highway priorities for the state of West Virginia that would improve safety and mobility, have both encountered multiple permitting delays under various environmental statutes. West Virginia water line extension, broadband projects, bridge replacements have all faced federal permitting delays. And I'm sure my state is not unique. The problems we will explore today have been brewing for decades. However, this Congress, we have an opportunity, I think, to deliver meaningful, bipartisan legislation that addresses these problems. I'm committed to working with Ranking Member Whitehouse, our colleagues on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and those House Committee counterparts to produce a bill with meaningful reforms. Durable and implementable environmental review and permitting process reform must be bipartisan to be successful. My guiding principles for this effort are straightforward. The legislation that we develop must help all types of projects, not just politically favored projects or projects that will support the infrastructure needs of some Americans but not others. We must provide clarity and transparency in the processes. And finally, our legislation needs to look at every stage of these processes to find efficiencies while balancing public health, the environment, and the needs of our economy. Let me be clear, modernizing these processes does not mean cutting corners or weakening environmental and public health protections. It means making the processes more efficient, more predictable, and more transparent so that the processes are not stuck in bureaucratic, purgatory, or endless litigation. Hardworking Americans, small businesses, and entrepreneurs want a government that works for them, not one that keeps them waiting for the benefits that many of the projects promise to bring in their communities and household budgets.
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