Governors Push Bipartisan Plan to Speed Project Permitting

WASHINGTON — Hoping to speed the development of energy and infrastructure projects, members of the National Governors Association are touting a bipartisan plan they say will dramatically streamline the permitting process while maintaining the integrity of reviews.

In a joint statement, Utah’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, and Louisiana’s Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, called on Congress and the Biden administration to take definitive steps to improve and expand the project review process mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act to increase coordination among federal agencies and reduce duplication.

Cox and Edwards, who are co-chairs of the Governors Association Energy and Infrastructure Working Group, go on to propose the act be tweaked to improve timeliness and certainty of the permitting process by imposing deadlines for both project sponsors and the regulators reviewing them.

“A two-year deadline for federal decisions should have meaningful federal agency penalties to discourage delays,” they said.

They are also urging the federal government to: 

• Incentivize states and territories to grow capacity and improve their own permitting processes and assist local communities.
• Support state and territorial efforts to innovate with new permitting processes and integrating technologies.
• Allow flexibility in existing federal programs for states and territories to hire staff and contractors and support match requirements.
• Coordinate and cooperate with states and territories on water and transmission permits, and allow for revenue sharing in project outcomes.

In order to preserve environmental safeguards and community engagement, they are also proposing that updates to federal regulations and processes should ensure the continued consideration of environmental and economic impacts.

In addition they are asking the federal government to:

• Provide states and territories, and their citizens, an opportunity to learn about and be involved in each of those environmental reviews.
• Provide clear and durable standards for public comment processes, tribal and community engagement, and historic preservation reviews.
• Encourage project sponsors to begin engagement prior to application.
• Clarify which projects require which level of review and when certain exemptions can and cannot be used.

Cox and Bel Edwards call their proposal their “national vision for permitting reform for an all-of-the-above energy and infrastructure approach.”

“Governors are working together across party lines and state lines on commonsense solutions to safely speed up the process to deliver energy and infrastructure benefits nationwide, and we stand ready to support congressional efforts to do the same at the federal level,” they said.

The other members of the Governors Association Energy and Infrastructure Working Group are JB Pritzker, Democrat from Illinois; Janet Mills, Democrat from Maine; Greg Gianforte, Republican from Montana; Chris Sununu, Republican from New Hampshire; Doug Burgum, Democrat from North Dakota; Kevin Stitt, Republican from Oklahoma; and Pedro Pierluisi, Democrat from Puerto Rico.

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