Climate watch: Congress must pass energy project permit reform

On Dec. 17 we got the disappointing word that the Energy Permitting Reform Act (EPRA) of 2024 would not be included in Congress’s final spending package of the year.

“Citizens’ Climate Lobby volunteers have had hundreds of meetings, made thousands of phone calls, and sent tens of thousands of messages to Congress urging them to come to an agreement on bipartisan energy permitting reform,” said Flannery Winchester, vice president of communication for CCL.

Just the week before, CCL volunteers had held 320 constituent lobby meetings about EPRA with federal legislators, including one with an aide to Congressman Glenn Thompson by members of the State College CCL chapter. We will try again in 2025.

“The need for these reforms is not going away,” Winchester said. “We will continue to work with both sides of the aisle in the next Congress to advance this important issue.”

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, was the biggest climate-friendly legislation package ever turned into law. It provided billions of dollars of incentives for the manufacture of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. It gave generous tax incentives for families to decarbonize their homes and vehicles. But to put its benefits into action, we need permitting reform.

Without it, the United States will realize only 20% of the potential savings from the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Here’s the problem. It takes on average 4.5 years for federal agencies to complete environmental impact statements for major energy projects. It can take up to a decade to build new transmission lines. That is far too long.

Clean energy permitting reform will speed up our ability to build and connect new energy projects, getting good projects up and running quickly, while protecting vulnerable communities.

Renewable energy sources, mostly solar and wind, account for 92% of planned new energy installations in the U.S., according to a report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

That’s progress. But the nation needs new electric transmission lines to make those plans a reality.

Many planned solar and wind farms are in rural areas. Long distance transmission lines are needed to connect them with population centers where energy demand is greatest. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) lacks authority to approve interstate transmission lines. Instead, such lines require state-by-state permit consent. The EPRA would, among other things, give FERC more authority in the permitting process.

There has been opposition to EPRA from some environmental groups because a number of fossil fuel projects would benefit from it along with the far larger number of clean energy projects. Modeling analyses by reputable sources such as Princeton Zero Lab, Resources for the Future, Third Way, and Rocky Mountain Institute have concluded, however, that permitting reform would produce a substantial net reduction in carbon emissions.

Dana Nuccitelli, research coordinator for Citizens’ Climate Lobby, has estimated that permitting reform would reduce emissions by about 25%.

America needs new electric transmission lines. Energy permitting reform is a bipartisan issue that will benefit everyone. Congress should pass the Energy Permitting Reform Act in 2025.