House Republicans are plowing ahead with a bipartisan permitting reform bill this week as the issue of deregulation takes center stage as Congress approaches recess, despite opposition from some hardliners. [some emphasis, links added]
If signed into law, Republican Arkansas Rep. Bruce Westerman and Democratic Maine Rep. Jared Golden’s SPEED Act would reform the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a keystone federal environmental law that the White House recently targeted.
Like many deregulatory proposals, environmental groups are fighting the SPEED Act, though some hardline House Republicans have also been resisting the measure, arguing that it would pave the way for offshore wind projects that President Donald Trump has staunchly opposed.
“The last thing we need to do with offshore wind is to tie the administration’s hands in stopping that ridiculously expensive source of energy that enriches foreign companies with American taxpayer dollars,” Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the SPEED Act would do.”
NEPA — which requires agencies to consider infrastructure projects — became law in 1970.
Former President Jimmy Carter subsequently bolstered it with a 1977 executive order that deputized the Council on Environmental Quality to draft regulations governing the law’s implementation.
Several NEPA reforms within the SPEED Act would codify the 8-0 Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County Supreme Court decision on NEPA review, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Critics of NEPA’s evolution, including Westerman and Golden, argue that while the law was crafted with good intentions, it has been weaponized by environmental groups to delay or block energy projects through litigation, even when they are not directly affected.
Some SPEED Act amendments that survived a Monday House Rules Committee hearing are set to hit the floor Tuesday afternoon.
The rule teed up debate and votes on amendments demanded by critics of the permitting bill, but left intact language that some conservatives say could limit Trump’s ability to halt offshore wind projects.
Harris has opposed SPEED Act amendments that protect offshore wind projects, with a spokesperson for Harris writing to the DCNF that bill amendments are needed to stop the “ridiculously expensive energy scheme that enriches foreign companies with American taxpayer dollars.”
In its current form, the SPEED Act would make it more difficult for local governments to slow or stop energy projects, including offshore wind farms, a few of which are being litigated on the East Coast.
Harris and Van Drew have threatened to block the rule, with Harris telling E&E News Monday that “if it comes down with the … amendment still attached, it’s going to have a bad day tomorrow.”
Other critics that do not wish to see renewables or offshore wind specifically benefit from the SPEED Act include Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy and Republican New Jersey Reps. Van Drew and Chris Smith.
Van Drew and Smith represent New Jersey districts where many constituents strongly oppose offshore wind projects, while Roy is a leading critic of federal subsidies and fast-tracking for renewable energy.
Harris has opposed offshore wind over concerns about environmental impacts, national security risks, and the foreign companies benefiting financially from wind projects in his constituents’ backyards.
Read rest at Daily Caller
