The United States used to build huge, impressive projects really fast.
We don’t do that anymore. Projects that once took months or a couple of years now take decades.
The U.S. is among the slowest nations in the developed world in approving infrastructure projects – particularly when it comes to energy.
Why? As co-chairs of a bipartisan group of governors working on energy policy, we submit that the primary culprit is lousy permitting policies that needlessly drag out projects and which now endanger the massive infrastructure investments the federal government has made since 2021.
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It doesn’t have to be this way. We were thrilled to see both Congress and the Biden administration recognize the urgency of the problem by including several meaningful permitting reforms in the recent debt ceiling legislation. We offer our thanks to both Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden.
Much more remains to be done, but this was a good start. The bill included welcome updates to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA generates a blizzard of overlapping and repetitive review phases spanning multiple agencies – all but guaranteed to keep projects stuck in bureaucratic limbo for years.
By setting a maximum two-year time limit and establishing guidelines to ensure each project review is spearheaded by just one federal agency, Congress made substantial headway in reducing some of the uncertainty and redundancy plaguing the process.
We hope Congress and the administration view this success as a down payment –important progress but not sufficient.
Setting deadlines for federal review solves only part of the problem. Projects approved after years of rigorous environmental assessment and a thorough public comment process can face new delays from endless legal challenges.
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And even when projects aren’t litigated, the potential for litigation forces federal agencies to do much longer and detailed analysis than necessary.
The SunZia transmission project is the latest to make headlines illustrating America’s broken permitting process. The project to deliver electricity generated by wind energy in New Mexico to homes and businesses in Arizona and California finally received government approval last month – 15 years after developers first applied. And this is a project that was “fast-tracked.”
Every state has an example like this. In Utah, a transmission line to carry electricity through the state to deliver low-carbon electricity to California from a wind farm in Wyoming just got approval – also after 15 years.
In Louisiana, a state-of-the-art coastal restoration project is finally moving forward after six years of review. Time is of the essence to protect communities threatened by shoreline erosion, but the project was still delayed despite being fast-tracked by both the Obama and Trump administrations.
Further reforms could backstop indefinite challenge periods by establishing clear and durable standards for the public comment process and limiting judicial review once those standards have been met.
Preserving environmental safeguards and community engagement is of paramount importance, and governors will not support any policy that would undermine these essential components. But faster permitting and protecting the environment are not mutually exclusive, and governors from both parties agree it’s time for commonsense parameters to prevent abuse of the judicial review process.
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Over $1 trillion is heading to cities, states and territories to upgrade roads, bridges, ports and railways; expand broadband access; construct pivotal energy projects; and build high-tech manufacturing capacity. That’s a lot of money that will get piddled away in endless analysis or lawsuits if we don’t fix the federal permitting mess.
In fact, states can play an important role here. Democratic and Republican governors, through the National Governors Association, are already working together across party lines and state lines on solutions to safely speed up the process for all types of projects: wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear, oil, natural gas, coastal restoration, electric transmission, coal, pipelines, transportation and water infrastructure, forest projects, broadband, and critical minerals.
And because states and territories play a leading role in developing and building infrastructure projects, a better process would leverage state expertise. Through reforms to allow revenue-sharing and other support, states could hire staff, unleash innovative technologies and apply their on-the-ground expertise to further speed the process without compromising safety.
It shouldn’t take longer to approve a project than it takes to build it. Democrats and Republicans alike recognize permitting delays weaken U.S. economic growth, security and competitiveness.
We’ve seen great things happen when the parties work together. By finishing the job on permitting reform, Congress and the administration can achieve a major bipartisan win that gets America building again.
Let’s get it done.
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John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, is governor of Louisiana.
