[Senate Hearing 118-92]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]





                                                         S. Hrg. 118-92
 
                OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE PROJECT REVIEWS
                   FOR A CLEANER AND STRONGER ECONOMY

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS

                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              MAY 17, 2023

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
  
  
  
 [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 
  
  
  
  


        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
        
        
        
        
                                   ______

             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 53-256PDF                    WASHINGTON : 2023
         
        
        
        
        
        
               COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                  THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
          SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia, Ranking Member

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland         KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont             CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island     MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon                 PETE RICKETTS, Nebraska
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts      JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan            ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
MARK KELLY, Arizona                  DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
ALEX PADILLA, California             LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
JOHN FETTERMAN, Pennsylvania

               Courtney Taylor, Democratic Staff Director
               Adam Tomlinson, Republican Staff Director
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                              MAY 17, 2023
                           OPENING STATEMENTS

Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware..     1
Capito, Hon. Shelley Moore, U.S. Senator from the State of West 
  Virginia.......................................................     3

                               WITNESSES

Mallory, Hon. Brenda, Chair, Council on Environmental Quality....     6
    Prepared statement...........................................     9
    Response to an additional question from Senator Kelly........    15
    Responses to additional questions from Senator Fetterman.....    16
Miller, Hon. Jason, Deputy Director for Management, Office of 
  Management and Budget..........................................    22
    Prepared statement...........................................    24
Harada, Christine, Executive Director, Federal Permitting 
  Improvement Steering Council...................................    31
    Prepared statement...........................................    33

                          ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Letter to:
    The Council on Environmental Quality from the American Road 
      and Transportation Builders Association, April 10, 2023....    47
    Senators Carper and Capito from the American Petroleum 
      Institute, May 16, 2023....................................    50
    Senators Capito and John Barrasso from the American Forest 
      and Paper Association, May 18, 2023........................    78
    Senators Carper and Capito from the National Stone, Sand and 
      Gravel Association, May 17, 2023...........................    80


  OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE PROJECT REVIEWS FOR A CLEANER AND STRONGER 
                                ECONOMY

                              ----------                              


                        WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2023

                                       U.S. Senate,
                 Committee on Environment and Public Works,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:17 a.m. in 
room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper 
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
    Present: Senators Carper, Capito, Cardin, Whitehouse, 
Merkley, Markey, Kelly, Cramer, Boozman, Sullivan, and 
Ricketts.

          OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, 
            U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

    Senator Carper. Good morning, everyone. I am happy to call 
this hearing to order.
    We are here today to revisit opportunities for improving 
our environmental review and our permitting processes, as you 
know, in ways that support the deployment of clean energy 
projects and good paying jobs across our country. We need both.
    Today is our Committee's second hearing in less than 2 
months in an effort to chart a path forward on permitting 
reform legislation and finish the job that we have already 
begun. What do I mean by finishing the job? I mean build on the 
work we started last Congress when we passed, thanks to the 
leadership of our President and the members of this Committee, 
literally in this room, a once in a generation investment in 
our Nation's infrastructure and the largest investment ever to 
address the threat of climate change.
    In addition to helping us tackle the climate crisis and 
reduce harmful pollution, these historic investments are 
already creating literally hundreds of thousands of good paying 
jobs here at home while helping our Nation become even more 
competitive globally. Still, in order to make these clean 
energy investments a reality today, we first need to take a 
serious look at our current permitting processes.
    During our first permitting hearing just 3 weeks ago, we 
learned that our Nation currently has 2 terawatts of clean 
energy power sitting on the sidelines, waiting to be connected 
to our electric grid. I want to say that again: Our Nation 
currently has 2 terawatts of clean energy power literally 
sitting on the sidelines, waiting to be connected to our 
electric grid.
    We also learned at the first hearing that many communities 
still do not have a seat at the table, and they need to be 
heard during the permitting process.
    I believe we can do better, and we must do better. 
Fortunately, President Biden agrees, and so do many of our 
colleagues.
    As I said during that first hearing, I believe that a 
successful permitting reform proposal must accomplish at least 
three objectives. First, any serious proposal must reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions while upholding our Nation's bedrock 
environmental statutes. That includes addressing transmission 
barriers that make it harder for renewables to connect to the 
grid.
    Second, that proposal must support early and meaningful 
community engagement. And third, the legislation must provide 
businesses with the certainty and predictability that they need 
to make informed long term decisions.
    During that hearing, we were fortunate to hear from a 
diverse panel of stakeholders representing industry on the one 
hand and environmental groups on the other. While our witnesses 
did not see eye to eye on every single thing, all five of them 
did agree about the importance of engaging with communities 
early on and protecting our environment as we work to improve 
permitting efficiency. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe our 
Ranking Member also, and many of our colleagues, also embraced 
this theme after hearing our witnesses' testimony.
    In fact, most if not all of the stakeholders we have met 
with throughout the past several months have acknowledged that 
it is not necessary to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. In 
other words, we can achieve efficiencies without gutting any 
existing laws, and that is what we need to do.
    Unfortunately, a number of recent proposals, mostly from 
our friends over in the House of Representatives, aim to 
streamline the permitting process using very blunt tools and 
setting up what I believe is a false choice. If enacted, they 
may well strip away bedrock environmental protections under 
laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. 
And some of them would curtail, or in certain cases outright 
eliminate, the ability to seek judicial review of agency 
decisions.
    It is my heartfelt belief that we can provide businesses 
and communities with greater certainty by using a more targeted 
approach. And I hope that is exactly what we will do.
    As Chair Mallory will point out in her testimony today, 
NEPA helps inform roughly 100,000 Federal agency decisions and 
actions each year. Around 200 projects a year require an 
environmental impact statement. That is the most comprehensive 
type of environmental analysis. That said, more than 95 percent 
of projects needing approval receive that approval under the 
most expedited form of environmental review. That is known as a 
categorical exclusion.
    Even with this success, there are opportunities for 
improvement. As I oftentimes say, in everything that I do, I 
know I can do better. I think that is probably true of all of 
us. The same is true in this instance. We can improve 
efficiency, we can improve certainty, and we can improve 
predictability in the permitting process while also ensuring 
that communities have an opportunity to make their voices 
heard.
    Earlier this month, the Biden administration released new 
priorities to accelerate Federal permitting and improve 
environmental reviews across a broad range of infrastructure 
projects. I think there are a number of good ideas from the 
Biden administration's proposal that could be, maybe should be 
a part of permitting reform legislation. Among them is 
expanding the use of programmatic environmental reviews to 
accelerate permitting within identified regions.
    Some agencies are already beginning to do this, as you may 
know. For example, off the coast of New York State, the use of 
programmatic economic impact statements is helping to create a 
record of the environmental impacts of offshore wind 
development. Doing so can result in more timely project level 
reviews.
    I also believe that we should expand opportunities for 
developing clean energy facilities on brownfields, an idea that 
I believe Senator Capito supports, and others on our Committee.
    In addition, we should improve the use of digital tools and 
data sharing between agencies and facilitate greater community 
engagement, all ideas also supported by the Biden 
administration and by a number, maybe most of our colleagues.
    Still, as we work on this hugely consequential matter, it 
is important for us to hear from all stakeholders. That is why 
I plan to soon release a permitting proposal as a discussion 
draft. That is what we are calling it, a discussion draft. When 
I release it, I encourage our colleagues, I welcome our 
colleagues, along with members of the public, to provide us 
with substantive feedback.
    We also have much to learn about how these proposals would 
interface with the work currently being done by the 
Administration to promote timely, effective reviews. And that 
brings me to why we are holding today's hearing. This is an 
important hearing. We have a lot of hearings in this room. None 
of them are unimportant; this one is really important. We are 
here to gain the perspectives of these witnesses. And we look 
forward to hearing from each of you, and we thank you for 
joining us today.
    With that, let me turn to our Ranking Member, Senator 
Capito, for her opening statement.
    Senator Capito.

        OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, 
          U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA

    Senator Capito. Thank you, Chairman Carper, and thank the 
three of you for being here today and for what you do every day 
for this country. We appreciate that.
    We are holding this hearing today to discuss a priority for 
both of us and many of us: Modernizing and improving America's 
permitting process. Americans are dealing now with rampant 
inflation, breakdowns in supply chains, and aging, inadequate 
infrastructure. They are struggling with higher costs and less 
reliable infrastructure to heat and cool their homes, keep the 
lights on, get to school and to work.
    The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, 
which was born out of this Committee, was designed to address 
many of these challenges, by funding the build out of more 
road, bridge, drinking water, and wastewater projects, and 
making the United States less reliant on other countries to 
meet its basic needs.
    A year and a half later, we are now seeing that 
implementation of that legislation, as well as that of the 
CHIPS and Science Act, and even legislation that I did not 
support, the Inflation Act, all running into the same 
challenges that have dogged infrastructure development for 
years. It comes as no surprise to those of us who have been in 
and around this space for a while.
    That is why I have consistently called for statutory 
reforms to the Federal environmental review and permitting 
processes, including most recently in the RESTART Act that I 
introduced 2 weeks ago joined by most of my Republican 
colleagues on this Committee. The processes have become a 
bureaucratic, confusing maze.
    Even if a project sponsor successfully makes it through, or 
even if they make it through three different times under 
Administrations of both parties, as with the Mountain Valley 
Pipeline in my State, they often hit more roadblocks, 
litigation. Activists opposed to building any new projects are 
standing at the ready with a lawsuit to add further delays and 
costs in the hope of killing a project or inflicting so much 
pain that a project sponsor will give up, eliminating jobs, tax 
revenues, and economic resilience in the process.
    As even John Podesta, the President's senior advisor, 
acknowledged at an event last week, ``We got so good at 
stopping projects that we forgot how to build things in 
America. It has been this way for a while.''
    The red tape, regulatory hurdles, and endless court battles 
faced by businesses slow and sometimes altogether stop critical 
projects. Ultimately, it is the American people who pay. We 
sometimes hear defenders of the broken system claim that 
``most'' projects make it through the environmental review, 
permitting, and litigation just fine, but that torturing of the 
data sort of misses the point. The projects that are getting 
held up the longest, and administrator Martha Williams 
mentioned this yesterday in her testimony, the ones held up 
longest are those that are the most transformative and provide 
the most widespread benefits.
    These are the big ticket projects, the ones that would 
provide affordable energy to a whole region of the country, 
create new construction jobs and permanent positions in 
manufacturing, or connect rural communities with new roads. 
Those aren't examples pulled out of thin air.
    The Mountain Valley Pipeline, the Nucor steel mill, and 
Corridor H are examples of each type of project being held up 
by bureaucracy or litigation, and those are just pulled from my 
home State.
    I want to thank all of you again for coming here today; I 
look forward to hearing your ideas. However, I am concerned 
that your agencies are at best beautifying the existing 
processes with nice sounding policy pronouncements that really 
do nothing, or are actively making the situation worse with 
more regulation and delay, disguised as guidance to avoid an 
actual rulemaking process.
    Despite its rhetoric and vested interest in seeing those 
investments succeed, I have not seen the Administration do 
anything to actually address the challenges that I have 
outlined. More than a year ago, your three agencies announced a 
Permitting Action Plan. It then took your agencies 10 months to 
release guidance, in the form of a 13 page memo, to begin to 
implement that plan. It took 10 months to come up with a plan 
for the plan.
    Within a month after that memo was released, Federal 
agencies were supposed to provide you with their own Action 
Plans to implement that guidance by April the 5th.
    Ms. Mallory, we talked about this on the phone the other 
day. I spoke with you about these documents. And you indicated 
that the Administration does not intend to make those plans 
publicly available.
    I think it's important for us to hear what agencies have 
proposed to CEQ, OMB, and FPISC to improve the permitting 
process as we continue our legislative efforts. We have tried 
for years in prior infrastructure laws to solve these problems 
with increased coordination and aspirational timelines, but as 
we sit here today the problems persist, and these solutions 
have not worked.
    That is why we need specific legislation. We cannot waste 
another year as delays and high inflation reduce the impact of 
these investments. To truly modernize our environmental review 
and permitting processes, we must actually amend the underlying 
statutes like NEPA, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered 
Species Act.
    We need enforceable deadlines on environmental reviews, not 
goals or soft aspirational schedules that can be changed on a 
whim by agencies, but we need something that requires constant 
oversight. Most importantly, we need to modernize these 
processes for all types of projects.
    Pitting renewable projects against fossil, pipelines 
against transmission, even different transportation projects 
against each other will not strengthen our economy nor benefit 
our environment, but only lead to more political bickering in 
Congress and among industries jockeying to be favored in the 
process.
    From onshoring new manufacturing and domestic critical 
mineral projects to roads, bridges, gas pipelines, transmission 
lines, our permitting problems affect all sectors of the 
economy, and therefore our international competitiveness and 
national security. Also, we need judicial reform to end the 
vicious cycle of projects being held in limbo by activists.
    We need lasting solutions that won't shift between 
Administrations. To do that, we must have a transparent 
committee process, which we have embarked on, and compromise on 
bipartisan legislation, which we have done in the past and can 
do in the future.
    Now, I know that many issues in Congress have become 
increasingly partisan in recent years, but the need for 
environmental review and permitting modernization should not 
be. Both sides are watching their priorities get hung up in the 
process purgatory.
    This is an issue that should be approached with common 
sense and a bipartisan spirit. It is time for us to work 
together to find common ground and implement meaningful reforms 
to bring these processes up to date to address those challenges 
that we face today. By working together, we can find solutions 
that benefit both our economy and our environment, while still 
ensuring that projects are held to high standards of safety and 
environmental protection.
    I look forward to hearing from our agency partners and my 
colleagues today on how we can achieve this together.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Carper. Thank you.
    Senator Capito and I were both born in West Virginia. I was 
born in Beckley, and still have family there, as she knows. She 
has had a remarkable career, as has her family, including her 
dad, including one of her sons, who is running for Governor.
    One of the things that we have worked on together in the 
last couple of years is the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, 
maybe the most transformative infrastructure bill in the 
history of our country, at least since the building of the 
interstate highway. Coming to agreement on the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure was not easy. Coming to agreement on the Water 
Resources Development Act was not easy. Coming to agreement on 
transformative recycling legislation was not easy.
    But we found the middle and found common cause and reported 
out legislation, and we have built on that since then. My dad 
used to say to me all kinds of things, Senator Capito has heard 
most of them. One of those is, the hardest things to do are 
sometimes the things most worth doing. This is a hard thing to 
do. But it is really something that is worth doing.
    I am delighted that the three of you are here today to help 
us find our way, so that we can do the work for our country 
that needs to be done.
    I don't have a detailed background to introduce you with, I 
am just going to make this very brief and turn it over to each 
of you.
    First, we are going to hear from Brenda Mallory. Ms. 
Mallory has been here with us before. She chairs the Council on 
Environmental Quality.
    We are pleased to have you here back before us. Thank you 
for your work and your leadership there.
    Next, we are going to hear from Jason Miller, who I think 
changed his schedule here in the last week or so in order to be 
able to join us. He is the Deputy Director for Management at 
the Office of Management and Budget.
    Jason, welcome. We are glad to see you here.
    Last but not least, Christine Harada, Executive Director of 
the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council.
    We will now begin with listening to our witness testimony.
    Chair Mallory, will you start off, then we will pass it to 
Jason and then to Ms. Harada. Please proceed.

               STATEMENT OF HON. BRENDA MALLORY, 
            CHAIR, COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

    Ms. Mallory. Thank you so much, Senator Carper. It is a 
privilege to be here today.
    Good morning, everyone. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member 
Capito, distinguished members of the Committee, it is an honor 
to be with you today. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss 
the improvements the President and the Administration have made 
to our Nation's permitting process.
    A little over a year ago, I testified before this Committee 
on the Biden-Harris administration's progress to protect and 
improve the health of the environment in communities across 
America. We have come a long way in a year, thanks in large 
part to the historic investments in the Bipartisan 
Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS 
and Science Act.
    Your work in moving these laws is helping this 
Administration rebuild American manufacturing, increase 
American competitiveness, create millions of long lasting, good 
paying jobs, and tackle huge challenges including climate 
change.
    At CEQ, and across the Administration, we are laser focused 
on delivering the benefits of these laws at the scale and pace 
needed to combat the climate crisis while securing a clean and 
safe environment for future generations. Central to that vision 
is an environmental review process that is working as 
efficiently as possible.
    Since its bipartisan passage in 1969, the National 
Environmental Policy Act has played the crucial role of 
producing better and more coordinated government decisions that 
have prevented damaging and costly environmental and economic 
outcomes. The environmental improvements to the Nation's air 
and water quality and cleanup of contaminated lands have been 
achieved with the help of the National Environmental Policy Act 
review process.
    Yet we know that environmental reviews and permitting 
processes can take too long, and delays can come at a steep 
cost to communities, the economy, and the environment. With 
your help, our Administration is taking major steps to address 
the challenge and reform the permitting process to secure 
faster and better decisions that benefit the American people.
    The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction 
Act provide more than $1 billion to make sure that agencies 
have the environmental review and permitting experts and tools 
they need. The Administration is also proud to have worked with 
Congress to successfully reauthorize FAST-41, and the 
Permitting Improvement Steering Council, which is critically 
important to improving coordination and accountability for high 
priority projects.
    Last year, the President released the Permitting Action 
Plan, which set forth a strategy for ensuring that Federal 
environmental reviews and permitting processes are effective, 
efficient, and transparent, guided by the best science to 
promote positive environmental and community outcomes, and 
shaped by early and meaningful public engagement without 
unnecessary delay.
    Just last week, we announced an ambitious new action to 
supercharge efforts to build transmission at the scale needed 
to advance energy security and meet the President's clean 
energy goals. Due to this Administration's progress, we are 
completing environmental reviews faster than the previous 
Administration did. But there is more progress to be made.
    CEQ will continue to advance efforts to improve Federal 
agency decisionmaking and the environmental review and 
permitting process, so that we deliver on the National 
Environmental Policy Act's goal to harmonize economic growth 
and environmental sustainability.
    CEQ will also propose a rule that will reform and update 
the regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy 
Act to ensure fair and full public involvement and promote 
better decisionmaking. We are planning a broad public 
engagement process to ensure that the regulations will achieve 
better outcomes for our communities and our environment.
    As we implement these measures, we will continue to 
evaluate permitting reform proposals to assess their potential 
to improve the speed and quality of processes for big, 
transformative projects. CEQ is hard at work delivering on the 
President's commitment to protect our health, our environment, 
and our communities.
    The investments that you, Congress, have made will deliver 
the benefits of a cleaner environment to all Americans for 
generations to come. We will continue to work with you to 
strengthen supply chains, lower costs for families, grow our 
clean energy economy, support good paying jobs, and deliver 
much needed infrastructure while promoting early and meaningful 
public engagement and ultimately positive environmental and 
community outcomes.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look 
forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Mallory follows:]
     [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Carper. Thank you very much, Chair Mallory. Good to 
see you, and good to hear from you today.
    Mr. Miller, delighted that you could join us. Thanks so 
much for making the effort.

STATEMENT OF HON. JASON MILLER, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR MANAGEMENT, 
                OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

    Mr. Miller. Thank you.
    Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, 
distinguished members of the Committee. Thank you for the 
opportunity to speak with you on this important topic today, 
and thank you for your continued bipartisan leadership on 
improving the Federal permitting and environmental review 
process.
    Thanks to the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, 
the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act, the 
United States is making a once in a generation investment into 
our infrastructure and competitiveness that will create good 
paying jobs, grow our economy, invest in our communities, and 
combat climate change.
    But to take full advantage of these historic investments 
and ensure the timely and sound delivery of truly 
transformative projects, we need to ensure the Federal 
environmental review and permitting process is effective, 
efficient, timely, and transparent, guided by the best 
available science, and shaped by early and meaningful public 
and community engagement.
    The President and his Administration reject the view that 
there must be an inherent trade off between permitting 
efficiency and timeliness on the one hand and permitting 
effectiveness and ensuring the best outcomes for the community 
and the environment on the other. We must and we will do both, 
resulting in better projects, built faster, safer, and cleaner.
    Make no mistake: The Federal review and permitting process 
can and must be further improved. But many common 
misconceptions about this process persist, including that it is 
the sole reason for delay. In too many cases, it still is a 
reason for delay.
    Ninety-five percent of actions requiring Federal review 
under the National Environmental Policy Act are approved under 
a categorical exclusion, the most expedited form of review. 
These projects tend to move quickly and expeditiously. One 
opportunity is to expand the use of categorical exclusions.
    Less than 1 percent of actions require an environmental 
impact statement, the most extensive type of environmental 
analysis. Yes, these tend to be the largest, most complex, and 
most transformative projects.
    While misconceptions persist, again, make no mistake, the 
Federal permitting and environmental review process takes too 
long and must be improved. The Federal Government, though, has 
made real progress in reforming the permitting process through 
both legislative reforms and administrative actions. The 
actions of the Biden-Harris administration build on important 
steps taken under the Obama administration and the Trump 
administration.
    In addition, we are leveraging new authorities and historic 
investments provided by BIL, IRA, and CHIPS to accelerate the 
permitting and review process. In May 2022, as my colleague 
noted, we released a permitting action plan to accelerate smart 
permitting through cross-agency coordination, establish clear 
timeline goals, track key project information to hold agencies 
accountable, engage early and meaningfully with States, tribal 
nations, territories, and local communities, improve agency 
responsiveness, technical assistance and support, and use 
agency resources and environmental reviews to improve impacts 
of those projects.
    In parallel, the Administration is deploying sector 
specific teams to facilitate coordination or siting, 
permitting, supply chain and related issues, ensuring all 
agencies have information systems, performance measures and 
adequate capacity in place to create a more efficient and 
effective review process, and leveraging the Permitting Council 
to serve as a Federal center for permitting excellence.
    We have seen the Administration's commitment to action 
translate into real results. Our overall timelines on the most 
complex projects, those with an EIS, has continued to improve 
relative to the prior Administration. We have permitted more 
than 130 wind, solar, and geothermal projects with a combined 
capacity of 14 gigawatts of power, which has the ability to 
serve approximately 4.2 million homes with 70 more projects 
under review. We have approved the Nation's first two large 
offshore wind projects which are both now under construction 
and on track to complete reviews of another 15 additional 
project plans in the next several years.
    Again, while progress has been made, more needs to be done. 
The Administration fully supports bipartisan efforts to further 
reform permitting and last week outlined priorities for 
inclusion in a bipartisan reform package, including 
accelerating deployment of critical electric transmission, 
deploying hydrogen and carbon dioxide infrastructure, improving 
permitting efficiency and predictability, enhancing data 
collection needed for effective permitting, and incentivizing 
State and local permitting reform.
    We look forward to continuing to work with Congress to 
implement reforms that maximize timeliness and efficiency, are 
guided by the best available science, and shaped by early and 
meaningful public engagement.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I 
look forward to our continued partnership and welcome any 
questions you have.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:]
     [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Senator Carper. Thanks so much. Thanks for that statement.
    We will now turn to Ms. Harada. Thanks for joining us.

  STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE HARADA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FEDERAL 
            PERMITTING IMPROVEMENT STEERING COUNCIL

    Ms. Harada. Thank you so much, Chairman Carper and Ranking 
Member Capito and the distinguished members of this Committee, 
for the opportunity to testify today. In particular, I would 
like to take the opportunity to once again express my gratitude 
to Chairman Carper and Ranking Member Capito, for although the 
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs holds 
jurisdiction over the Permitting Council, it was your interest, 
your leadership, and your commitment that enabled the passage 
of the provisions that ensure this Nation will permanently 
benefit from the accountability, certainty, and transparency 
that FAST-41 brings to the Federal permitting process.
    With the passage of the Infrastructure Law, the Inflation 
Reduction Act, and the CHIPS and Science Act, the United States 
is making generational investments in our infrastructure and 
competitiveness. President Biden has been and continues to be 
very clear on his principles for building our Nation's 
infrastructure and securing America's future, that we must 
address our climate goals, we must engage communities, and we 
must provide certainty and predictability for developers.
    I come to this role with extensive experience in the 
private sector as an investor, an advisor, a renewable energy 
developer, and an engineer. As Executive Director, my goal is 
to make the United States the most attractive market for 
infrastructure investment. This means increased consistency in 
project delivery, reduced litigation risks, clear regulatory 
requirements, enhanced predictability, accountability, and 
certainty in the permitting processes.
    Together with the Permitting Council members, we work to 
deliver infrastructure projects that are economically and 
environmentally sustainable and achieve consensus with and 
benefit the impacted communities and tribal nations.
    Under President Biden's leadership, the Permitting Council 
has focused relentlessly on four vectors: To enhance 
coordination amongst agencies, enhance data sharing, both among 
agencies and also with project developers, to provide more 
transparency, and provide funding to support those efforts.
    Notably, FAST-41 does not elevate speed over the 
deliberation that is needed to deliver excellent environmental, 
economic, and community outcomes. And we have achieved a number 
of successes with this model. Since our inception, the 
Permitting Council has successfully permitted 31 projects, 
reflecting an estimated direct capital investment value of over 
$160 billion.
    Our current project portfolio is worth approximately $100 
billion, and in the past year we have successfully permitted 
four major projects worth approximately $40 billion. They 
include the Ten West Link Transmission Line in Arizona, South 
Fork Wind project off the coast of New York, the Mid-Barataria 
Sediment Diversion project in Louisiana, and the Alaska LNG 
pipeline and terminal.
    Since Congress has acted to make the Permitting Council 
permanent, we see renewed and increased interest in FAST-41 
project coverage, particularly in the renewable energy, 
electricity transmission, carbon capture, critical minerals, 
and broadband sectors. Recently, we have added two tribal 
broadband projects in New Mexico and Alaska, and a critical 
minerals project in Arizona.
    To ensure the timely and sound delivery of much needed 
upgrades to America's infrastructure, last year the Biden-
Harris administration, as my colleagues noted, published the 
Permitting Action Plan to strengthen and accelerate Federal 
permitting and environmental reviews. This plan is being 
addressed and deployed by an all of government effort at the 
senior most levels. Cabinet officials are meeting on an almost 
weekly basis to work through permitting in a very hands on 
manner. We at the Permitting Council provide support to further 
drive creative solutions and to break down barriers.
    More than ever, our efforts to provide that predictability 
and certainty into the Federal permitting process is vital. Our 
work directly impacts the United States' transition to a clean 
energy economy while providing good paying domestic jobs and 
more equitable environmental and social outcomes. President 
Biden has been very clear in his expectations of us, and with 
the investments that Congress has appropriated to the 
Permitting Council, we are able to ensure strong agency 
coordination and community engagement up front to get those 
projects permitted, concrete in the ground, steel in the 
ground, boots on the ground, without compromising on public 
engagement, analytical rigor, or environmental protections.
    I very much look forward to continuing to partner with this 
Committee and Congress to pass thoughtful permitting reform.
    I thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today 
on this important matter, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Harada follows:]
    
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    Senator Carper. Ms. Harada, thank you. We look forward to 
your answers to our questions. Thank you for an excellent 
statement, and to all of you, thank you for excellent 
statements.
    I am going to kick it off with a question, then turn it 
over to our Ranking Member, Senator Capito.
    First question would be for Chair Mallory. Would you 
address for us, please, the importance of early engagement, 
something we heard a lot about at our first hearing, and how 
legislation could help support early engagement?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you so much, Senator Carper, for that 
question. I think as you know, one of the foundations of the 
National Environmental Policy Act is the belief that there is a 
value to the participatory process, and to the ability of 
people to be able to speak to their government about the ways 
in which actions that the Government is planning can be 
improved.
    We have emphasized from the beginning of the NEPA 
regulatory process the need for and the value of early 
engagement. ``Early and often'' is a phrase that is often said. 
In our action plan that we released last year, we placed an 
emphasis on that, in actions that CEQ has taken independently 
we talk about the importance of that. So we believe that this 
is a mechanism for allowing projects not to get so far down a 
path that there is any misunderstanding about what the 
community believes is important.
    So I think that is an issue that we continue to believe 
will have some value in addressing longer term issues.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you for that.
    I would like to ask Mr. Miller the second question, and it 
deals with interagency coordination. Last year, the Biden 
administration released a permitting action plan that has been 
referred to here today to outline the Administration's 
strategies to strengthen and to accelerate the environmental 
review and permitting, as well. One element of that permitting 
action plan is to promote early cross-agency coordination.
    My question is this: How does agency coordination 
facilitate or impede timely environmental reviews? And what 
administrative and legislative changes can help further improve 
that coordination, particularly in the context of clean energy 
projects?
    Mr. Miller. Chairman Carper, thank you for the question. 
This has been a key reform that has been made, both 
administratively and legislatively in terms of, we have large, 
complex projects that have multiple agencies with different 
permits. We have set up a process, and we are trying to 
reinforce that process and expand it across more projects where 
you have a single lead agency, defining a clear timeline in the 
front end, bringing together all of the relevant agencies to 
establish a clear schedule associated with it, analysis that 
needs to be done to drive forward on an overall project, make 
that timeline and project plan publicly available, so that we 
are tracking it, monitor performance throughout by agency with 
the lead agency driving that charge. That is at the heart of 
the FAST-41 process for those projects.
    We have been, through our Permitting Action Plan, expanding 
the set of projects that are leveraging that approach.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you.
    Just as a follow up, how important is it for the Federal 
Government to also coordinate with States as well as with 
tribal governments, with local governments in order to 
facilitate the permitting process?
    Mr. Miller. Senator, thank you. Yes, incredibly important 
to coordinate with States, communities, both through the 
community engagement process to identify issues early, but also 
through the ongoing permitting process. There are efforts 
underway in Georgia, in New York, of State coordination between 
the Federal Government and the States, bringing all the 
relevant entities together, sometimes in one room, to make sure 
there is enhanced communication, that there are no balls 
dropped around what data analysis is being performed by whom 
and by when.
    That kind of simple set of steps is actually critical when 
you have multiple parties and multiple entities targeting a 
complex project, making sure everyone knows who has the ball so 
that we can move it forward efficiently.
    Senator Carper. Good, thanks.
    A quick question for Ms. Harada, As Executive Director of 
the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, you play 
an important role in ensuring that major projects move forward 
in a timely fashion, and also that they meet our national goals 
and priorities.
    My question is, what is the most important thing, the most 
important thing, that the Permitting Council could do to 
improve Federal environmental reviews in order to improve 
certainty while also improving environmental outcomes?
    Ms. Harada. Thanks so much for the question, Senator.
    In our view, we have a fairly unique perspective given the 
role that we play in terms of ensuring that agencies are indeed 
coordinating with one another for the various projects 
specifically, especially those that are in our portfolio.
    We are able to also observe trends across the various 
agencies, notably around two broad buckets, I would say. The 
first is around what are the policy issues or the policy 
questions that different agencies may have different 
perspectives on, and helping with escalating those or calling 
the question.
    The second area is around identifying where there may be 
resource allocation issues with respect to ensuring that the 
work gets done on time, on budget, working hard to ensure that 
you have the right brains on the ground looking at the problem 
at the right time.
    Senator Carper. All right, thanks so much.
    We will have time for a second round, and I hope to come 
back and be able to ask you a few more questions.
    Senator Capito.
    Senator Capito. Thank you.
    Ms. Mallory, I wanted to ask you a question. In January, 
CEQ issued interim guidance for agencies to use in evaluating 
greenhouse gas emissions during their NEPA reviews. I would 
like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record 
opposition to the guidance from the American Road and 
Transportation Builders Association as well as the American 
Petroleum Institute, which details how its use will delay 
realization of many of the investments in the IIJA.
    I don't hear any objection, so I am going to enter it in 
there.
    Senator Carper. No objection.
    [The referenced information follows:]
     [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
     
    Senator Capito. The CEQ guidance follows a trend of Federal 
agencies using guidance to try to force policy or regulatory 
changes outside the rulemaking process and without 
congressional authorities. One recent example was the Federal 
Highway Administration Policy memo that was issued in 2021, 
which the agency rescinded this year amidst opposition, 
including from myself.
    So, Ms. Mallory, is this merely guidance? Do you feel it is 
not binding on Federal agencies?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you, Senator, for that question. Yes, 
the guidance that we issued is guidance. It is a framework that 
we felt necessary given that there has been such a tremendous 
amount of litigation in which parties have been told and the 
Federal Government in particular has been told that inadequate 
analysis was done on climate change impacts.
    So the guidance was essentially to help ensure that we have 
greater clarity and consistency across the Government in how 
the analysis is approached, and that agencies are walking 
through and thinking through the issues that need to be 
addressed in a greenhouse gas guidance in order to meet the 
concerns that have been raised by courts.
    So agencies can use different tools and approaches, and 
they have used that as a framework that they can move forward 
on.
    Senator Capito. Did you have public comment on that 
guidance?
    Ms. Mallory. Yes, the guidance was put out for comment at 
the time that it was issued.
    Senator Capito. So I think that is kind of unusual for 
guidance as opposed to like rulemaking. So I don't know why you 
would need public comment on a guidance document.
    Ms. Mallory. We often do comment on guidance.
    Senator Capito. What is the statutory authority that you 
would move in this direction?
    Ms. Mallory. NEPA itself covers the impacts that would come 
from climate change. That is clear and the courts have clearly 
said that. So the idea of CEQ helping agencies to think about 
how they meet that requirement is consistent with our statutory 
direction.
    Senator Capito. Mr. Miller was saying in his, I saw your 
head nodding when I got into the complicated, I think we agree, 
the complicated, big projects are the ones that we are really 
having the problems with on both sides of, whatever ledger you 
are on, those are the ones that are causing the issues.
    You mentioned that things were, you have single, clear 
deadlines now and a coordination fashion, this is just not what 
you are hearing on the ground. We have a major project in our 
State, and the Federal agencies aren't talking to one another. 
And it is just a serious delay process on the ground, to the 
point where it could cause a project to either, A, leave, or B, 
be postponed for another year because of environmental impacts, 
which this project is trying to ameliorate for the specific 
period of time they can do it.
    Because the permit is so slow coming, they may not have 
enough time to move the mussels, basically is what it is, in 
the river.
    What am I missing here? Why are we here if everything is 
going better and we are coordinating better? What are we going 
to do here to make these projects move faster? All I have heard 
is earlier engagement by the public. I don't have a big 
objection to that, but is that the only suggestion?
    Mr. Miller. I think we can both say that we have improved 
the process, but we are far, far short of where we need to be. 
I think those can be both true.
    On the question associated with coordination, there are 
expectations, and making sure that we have a clear project plan 
in place with deliverables associated with the overall timeline 
that is transparent----
    Senator Capito. Yes, but they blow by their timelines. 
Agencies blow by their timelines.
    Mr. Miller. For timelines, an important area and an area 
that we do need to continue to improve, one, for each time that 
there is a delay in a project we should all be crystal clear on 
the cause of delay. Agencies are required to have remediation 
plans in place. One of the ways in which we try and hold them 
accountable is when there is a delay, they need to identify 
specific challenges.
    Senator Capito. I don't mean to interrupt you, but what 
does that really do? If they blow by their deadlines, and you 
are just asking them, you have to give me a reason why you are 
blowing by your deadline, that doesn't sound very harsh.
    Mr. Miller. Historically you had separate permitting 
processes that were operating independently. What we are trying 
to do is create them under an overall coordinated project plan, 
with the lead agency responsible for----
    Senator Capito. Yes, One Federal Decision.
    Mr. Miller. Right, which is a requirement under the 
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
    Senator Capito. Which has not been implemented over at the 
Federal Highways sufficiently to make those projects go. And 
that has been, well, I think President Trump put it in, and 
then we codified it in the IIJA.
    Mr. Miller. Right.
    Senator Capito. So we are still not getting satisfactory 
results from that.
    Mr. Miller. So the core construct of One Federal Decision 
for transportation projects is something that is being 
implemented that we need to, yes, continue to improve on 
overall process. One area that we need to tackle together is 
both investments in agency staffing, and investment in agency 
systems. Yes, we need better coordination with clear timelines. 
But some of our processes are still paper based; this is not 
just a problem in the permitting space, this is a problem more 
broadly.
    But it is exacerbated in the permitting space because you 
have multiple agencies. So you are sharing data in ways that 
are inconsistent, you are redoing analyses at times because you 
don't have the systems in place. Those are areas that we also 
need to improve, which would enable coordination to be more 
effective.
    I don't want to defend that the way it is being done right 
now is optimal. What I do want to say is, we have made real 
progress. We are committed to it. I welcome working together 
with you and this Committee to make sure that we are making 
more progress.
    Senator Capito. Thank you.
    Senator Carper. Before I turn to Senator Cardin, I would 
make a unanimous consent request. A reason why it is important 
for the Federal Government to address climate change and the 
permitting process rulemaking is that climate is a real 
problem, and an expensive one too, I would add. I want to ask 
unanimous consent to submit for the record an accounting 
billion dollar weather and climate events by the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It tells us that over 
the last 5 years, extreme weather and climate disasters have 
cost the American people, get this, more than $595 billion, 
that is billion with a B, $595 billion in economic damages.
    That is on average, I think about $120 billion every year. 
Both of these figures are nearly double the 43 year inflation 
adjusted annual average cost.
    Without objection, so ordered.
    [The referenced information was not received at time of 
print.]
    Senator Carper. Senator Cardin, welcome.
    Senator Cardin. Thank you.
    Let me thank all three of our witnesses.
    Senator Carper. Is one of these witnesses a constituent of 
yours?
    Senator Cardin. At least one. I know Mr. Miller lives in 
Maryland. I know the other two would like to live in Maryland, 
if they don't.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Cardin. Oh, two of these three live in Maryland. 
Why aren't you living in Maryland?
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Cardin. Let me first thank you. I am going to take 
a little bit different tack here.
    The permitting process is there for a good reason. I am 
more concerned about the reasons for permitting being carried 
out than a rigid time schedule or a rigid decisionmaking 
process that could lead to the wrong decisions being made.
    Mr. Miller, let me start with the Permitting Action Plan. I 
want to concentrate on the fifth part of that, which is 
adequately resourcing agencies and using the environmental 
review process to improve environmental and community outcomes.
    The Inflation Reduction Act, we have heard a lot about it. 
But one of the things it did was provide additional resources 
for permitting. So since you are the person responsible for 
those funds being allocated, have we made progress in providing 
adequate resources to the agency so they can carry out those 
functions? We don't always get the same degree of support from 
our Republican colleagues who are complaining all the time on 
the time limits as to resourcing the agency so that they can 
handle the responsibilities.
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Senator. Yes, it is a critically 
important issue, as I was noting to Ranking Member Capito. The 
$1.1 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, $750 
million to different agencies, $350 million to the 
Environmental Review Improvement Fund that FPISC manages, is 
absolutely critical.
    The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also provided 
administrative resources which can be used for permitting. We 
are working with agencies, both on an agency by agency basis 
and through the sector specific working groups to identify 
areas of shortage. Staffing is one of them.
    So not only are we making sure that agencies are allocating 
their resources appropriately, we have looked and gone agency 
by agency into what their staffing needs are. That is not a 
precise exercise, because we don't have the complete demand 
projection associated with what set of projects that is going 
to come in. But we know the kinds of areas where there are 
shortages.
    It is things sometimes as simple as having enough project 
management expertise inside of an agency to own and drive some 
of these processes forward.
    In addition to staffing our systems, this is a 
governmentwide problem, our systems have been underinvested in 
for years and years, agency after agency. Even our ability to 
measure and monitor the performance of an individual permit 
down inside of a region is challenged. So that investment is 
critical. Thank you for your leadership, for Senator Carper's 
leadership on making sure that we have more resources.
    Senator Cardin. I really want to underscore this. We had a 
hearing yesterday in the Senate Finance Committee on the 
Internal Revenue Service and adequately providing them with the 
resources to carry out their responsibilities. That was in the 
Inflation Reduction Act. These issues were put into the 
Inflation Reduction Act because we couldn't get the type of 
bipartisan support to pass them in the normal appropriations 
cycles.
    It is so important for the agencies to have the resources 
necessary to carry out our policies, and part of that is 
permitting. So it was included in the Inflation Reduction Act 
for a reason, because we couldn't get it through the other 
appropriation areas. We hear complaints that you can't get 
timely decisions, but if you don't have the resources, how can 
you deal with the challenges? I just really wanted to 
underscore that point.
    The second point I want to raise is a little bit different 
from that. This Committee has heard me in just about every 
hearing raise the Chesapeake Bay and the water quality of the 
Chesapeake Bay, and the permitting obviously affects some of 
the Clean Water Act issues. But I am concerned that at times we 
don't respect local governments' views and decisions as it 
relates to the permitting process at the Federal level.
    What protections are put into this plan that you have come 
up with on permitting to make sure there is adequate local 
consideration by our local governments in the permitting 
process?
    Mr. Miller. Senator, I am happy to take that one, and would 
also welcome my colleague, Ms. Mallory.
    Having good, strong, up front community engagement, 
establishing an expectation that agencies are conducting that, 
having a senior accountable official inside of an agency 
responsible for community engagement on key complex projects, 
identifies issues early, it allows us to identify, with project 
sponsors, project developers, ways to address those issues, so 
that you don't create an incentive for conflict later, which 
oftentimes is the area where we see concern. That is an 
expectation in the Permitting Action Plan. It is an expectation 
on agencies that we are holding them accountable against.
    Senator Cardin. Ms. Mallory, as a Marylander, how would you 
make sure Maryland's input is heard?
    Ms. Mallory. Absolutely. I think your point is very 
critical. I think we recognize the importance of State and 
local governments in protecting their water resources. And in 
fact, one of the things, in addition to what we are doing in 
the permitting context, where we have coordination with the 
local entities being critical, one of the things this 
Administration has underway is a proposal that the 
Environmental Protection Agency has done that specifically is 
focused on Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, and trying to 
ensure that the State and local governments have the authority 
and the process that they need in order to be able to weigh in 
on the water quality in their areas.
    So that is under process and I think is addressing exactly 
the issues that you have addressed.
    Senator Cardin. Thank you.
    Mr. Miller.
    Mr. Miller. I just wanted to say thank you for your 
leadership on the Chesapeake Bay, since I, with my 5 year old 
daughter, hope to be in the water of the Chesapeake Bay on 
Saturday afternoon.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Cardin. That is the best way to spend this weekend. 
Thank you.
    Senator Carper. Let me remind you that the State with the 
most five star beaches in America is actually his neighboring 
State, Delaware.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. We are pretty good buddies.
    We have been joined by a Marine Colonel.
    Welcome aboard, Senator Sullivan. You are recognized.
    Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. By the way, 
speaking of your outstanding military service, right 
downstairs, the Artemis crew that has just been selected to go 
to the moon is right down there. Three Naval aviators, 
actually. You would be proud, just like you. A really 
impressive group, right downstairs. It makes everybody proud.
    Ms. Mallory, I appreciated the phone call and discussion 
yesterday. I think we are all very passionate about permitting, 
I certainly am, and getting projects finalized on time. Alaska 
has been ground zero for many of the infamous delays, whether 
it is litigation or Federal agencies or lower 48 environmental 
groups where it just takes forever to get anything permitted. 
It really hurts the average citizen, the average American, 
average Alaskan.
    You and I talked about this issue yesterday, which I think 
is a really important one. There has been discussion, I think 
discussion is starting to happen on permitting. But some 
leadership in the White House is saying, well, we can do 
permitting reform but only for these selected kinds of 
projects. It is renewables and things like that. I am for all 
of the above, wind turbines, solar, hydro, oil, gas, we need it 
all. The country needs it all. Bridges, roads, ports, you name 
it, we need it. Critical minerals.
    So yesterday, you said in your view, NEPA is agnostic, it 
doesn't put its kind of thumb on the scale. If we are going to 
do permitting reform under NEPA or other processes, do you 
agree that it should be for everything, all the kinds of things 
I just mentioned? We are not going to say, hey, we will do wind 
turbines, but you guys who are producing natural gas, forget 
it, we are still going to make sure you are delayed by 15 
years?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you, Senator, for that question. As we 
talked about, the focus that we are placing on permitting is 
looking at permitting systems writ large.
    Senator Sullivan. Good.
    Ms. Mallory. The National Environmental Policy Act is very 
focused on making sure that we have good procedures and good 
approaches to all of the work that we do. And in particular, 
the work that CEQ has been doing is really trying to make sure 
that agencies have the data through the regulatory process that 
is necessary for all of their actions.
    Senator Sullivan. Any other comments on that? I appreciate 
that. It is important to state that, particularly given your 
important role in the Government.
    Anyone else have a view on that? I only want your view if 
you agree with Ms. Mallory.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Miller. Yes, the process improvements are agnostic to 
the types of projects we need, the good decisionmaking we need, 
coordination we need, clear transparency we need, 
accountability associated with those decisions.
    Senator Sullivan. Ms. Harada, do you have the same view on 
that? I just want to hear it from all of you. It is a really 
important issue, actually.
    Ms. Harada. Absolutely. Thank you for the question, 
Senator, and I absolutely share my colleagues' sentiments with 
respect to the importance of ensuring that the process 
discipline and improvement in that is absolutely followed, 
regardless of whatever the technology is.
    Senator Sullivan. Let me ask another one that is kind of a 
frustration of mine, certainly in Alaska. And this is even, 
this is your nightmare scenario on permitting. We have had 
several projects that have gone through their NEPA process, 
several years with this road, the Ambler Mining District.
    Ms. Mallory, you and I have talked about the Tongass 
roadless rule. A whole host of projects. There is one called 
the Donlin Mine, it is a big gold mine on Alaska Native owned 
land.
    What happens in Alaska, and unfortunately, the Biden 
administration has really been problematic in this regard, you 
have been going to a number of projects that have gone through 
NEPA, gone through an EIS, taken 5, 6, 7, 8 years, cost $10 
million, and groups come and say, well, we didn't like that. 
The Biden administration reopened that, reversed that, and you 
are doing it, you are doing it in my State.
    You want to talk about killing certainty, I mean if you 
have a 6 year NEPA process that costs $10 million, for example 
the Ambler Mining Road, and the day the President holds his 
critical mineral summit, the Department of Interior says, by 
the way, Alaska, we are going to reverse that. You didn't 
consult enough. That is the big excuse you guys use for us.
    What does that do to investment? What does that do to 
certainty? Can you commit to this Committee that, hey, if you 
do a 7 year NEPA process that costs $10 million by the 
professional staff of the Federal agencies, yes, it was with 
the previous Administration, I know you don't like those guys, 
but the vast majority of these are done by the professional 
Federal employees.
    Then you come back and say, we are going to reopen that, 
and you, Alaska, can start again. They are trying to do that 
right now on a mine called the Donlin Mine. It got its record 
of decision 5 years ago, 5 years ago. I mean, we will turn into 
a banana republic if we start going to projects that were fully 
permitted 5 years ago and say, we are going to reopen that.
    So what is your thought on that? Permitting has to involve 
certainty. Reopening old EISs and records of decision because 
some lower 48 environmental group is asking you to do it is not 
certainty at all. Can I get your guys' views on that? It is a 
huge problem in my State. You are doing it a ton. I have a 
whole list that I could submit for the record. But it is 
crushing my State, the workers, certainty, investment. And it 
is just not right, like I said. Venezuela does this. But 
America shouldn't do this work. We are a country of the rule of 
law.
    Do you have a view on that?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you so much, Senator. I appreciate the 
question. I think, as we discussed yesterday, we are moving 
forward. One of our main goals is to make sure that we are 
giving the agencies clear enough guidance about what they need 
to do in their environmental review processes, so that they can 
proceed in a way that people can rely on.
    I think you have described a number of different 
circumstances in which the judgment was that the environmental 
analysis was not adequate, or the consultation was not 
adequate. So what we are trying to do----
    Senator Sullivan. Respectfully, that is just, you are using 
that excuse in Alaska all the time. And we have these EISs that 
are completed and records of decision, millions of dollars 
spent, 6, 7 years. And you are coming in going, eh, not enough 
consultation. Start again.
    That is the death sentence to any kind of--I want to get 
your guys' commitment to stop doing that, right? These are 
records of decisions that have been made by the professional 
Federal Government employees, and your guys' positions, the 
Department of Interior. And it is just killing the idea of 
certainty, particularly when it is focused on one State. We 
know it is my State that gets most of the action.
    Can I get your commitment, though, to just be really 
skeptical about doing that? You finish the EIS, the record of 
decision comes out, again, right now they are trying to do it, 
there is a group trying to do it on the Donlin Mine. Five years 
ago, we got all the records of decision. Some groups are trying 
to reopen it.
    We should just tell them no.
    Ms. Mallory. That is what I am saying, Senator, is that I 
think what we have found, and I don't want to get into 
individual circumstances, because I am not familiar with them, 
but what we have found in a general way is that when there is a 
weakness in the analysis, then we are going to find ourselves 
in court in ways that are going to lead us to go back anyway.
    So I think the agencies are trying to balance that. On the 
particular circumstances you are describing, I don't know those 
details. But I do know that that has been an issue that has 
come up.
    Senator Sullivan. OK, thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Carper. Mr. Miller, do you have anything you want 
to add to that?
    Ms. Harada? OK.
    We have been joined by Mark Kelly, Senator Kelly.
    You are recognized. Welcome.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you all for being here today.
    I have a similar question that Senator Sullivan had. Let me 
start with Ms. Mallory, on the Permitting Action Plan released 
by the White House last year. It identified several types of 
projects where the Administration would assemble teams of 
experts to identify ways to facilitate siting, permitting, and 
environmental review projects. The list of these projects 
included things like renewable energy and broadband, critical 
minerals, and transportation projects.
    But it didn't include water infrastructure or water supply 
projects. And we have got this 20 year drought going on.
    Could you explain why the water infrastructure and water 
supply projects were left out?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you, Senator, for that question. Yes, I 
think what we were trying to do as we set up the action plan 
was to highlight those areas where we knew there was ongoing 
and very active actions, interagency actions of the most 
complex nature. There were already some conversations occurring 
in order to take advantage of the fact that so many agencies 
were working on them.
    So those lined up with funding priorities that had been set 
by Congress, and that they were areas where we knew that it 
would be helpful for us to step in. We did not intend for that 
list to be an exclusive list. The basic principles that are set 
out in the action plan and where we are working with agencies 
around their NEPA and their permitting compliance in general go 
beyond those sectors. Those sectors are just places that stood 
out as needing particular attention.
    Senator Kelly. So it was a coincidence that there was just 
no water supply or water infrastructure projects included?
    Ms. Mallory. I think the water projects, as I am saying, is 
that there is a system in place, there is a familiarity in 
dealing with those. So just using the tools that we have 
identified for use for those specific sectors is working. If 
there is a situation in which it looks like we need some extra 
added benefit of a sector, I think that could be added in the 
future.
    Senator Kelly. OK. The $4 billion that we appropriated to 
be used by Reclamation is going to be in response to a lot of, 
it is for drought, and mitigation of the drought. So there will 
be a significant number of water supply and infrastructure 
projects.
    Could you talk a little bit about the specific actions that 
your office has taken that the Administration has collaborated 
with Reclamation to ensure that as we start this process, the 
NEPA process, that we don't face significant delays? Is there 
anything that you can specifically point to?
    Ms. Mallory. Yes. This to me is another good example of 
where having the extra funding that is focused on staffing and 
resources from the IRA has been really important in allowing 
the agencies to position themselves around the compliance that 
is necessary. We have a separate, under the Climate Policy Task 
Force, a separate drought focused interagency group. And that 
interagency group talks about the range of issues that come up 
with respect to those projects and how we can get ahead of any 
anticipated challenges. That is working to assist us, so that 
we are able to move forward on these projects quickly.
    Senator Kelly. And Mr. Miller, anything more that you could 
share on actions at OMB that the Administration is taking to 
support the deployment of more water infrastructure projects?
    Mr. Miller. Senator, thank you, and thank you for the 
question and your leadership on this issue.
    As my colleague noted, staffing is an area that we have 
been particularly focused on at the Department of Interior, but 
also more broadly one of the things we have been trying to 
support as identifying the specific capabilities and capacity 
that are needed for permitting these projects to make sure they 
are moving forward and working with the Office of Personnel 
Management to make sure we have the HR strategic resources, the 
hiring authorities needed to onboard.
    The second area we have been looking at is systems, systems 
capacity. We have been using some expertise from our U.S. 
Digital Service to dig in on that question of how data is 
captured, how data is shared, the underlying IT systems for 
both performance measurement as well as capturing information 
necessary for both analysis and the permits.
    Senator Kelly. Finally, if I could just have a few more 
seconds, Mr. Chairman, Ms. Harada, would a water supply project 
that is funded by Reclamation using IRA funds be eligible for 
FAST-41, for that process?
    Ms. Harada. Thank you so much for your question, Senator 
Kelly. As a Southern California native, the drought issue is 
absolutely central to our families' concerns.
    To answer your question, sir, fundamentally any project 
that is subject to NEPA and requires over a $200 million 
investment can and does qualify for FAST-41 coverage. Water 
infrastructure is indeed one of the covered sectors that is 
authorized for us within the FAST-41 statute. So the bottom 
line answer, sir, is yes.
    Senator Kelly. We noticed that there were only four 
Reclamation projects listed on the permitting dashboard that 
your office maintains, and none of them were FAST-41 covered 
projects yet. Why do you think so few water supply projects get 
listed on the dashboard?
    Ms. Harada. Thanks for the question, Senator. One of the 
issues that we are trying to address is that because the agency 
only recently became permanent in 2021, many project sponsors 
candidly kind of turned off their attention, if you will. You 
are not going to be around here in two more years, my project 
is probably not going to get permitted in that timeframe.
    But since we have become permanent, again thanks to this 
Committee's leadership, we have seen a renewed interest in the 
number and types of projects in a diversity of sectors. I 
attribute the lack of water infrastructure projects more to a 
lack of awareness about FPISC and the Permitting Council and 
our authorities and our capabilities. And that is something 
that our team is very actively working on and would very much 
appreciate your support in getting the word out, sir.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you. We would like to see more of 
these water supply projects qualify for the FAST-41 permitting 
process.
    Thank you.
    Senator Carper. Senator Kelly, thank you. Thanks very much 
for joining us.
    We have been joined for the second time by Senator 
Ricketts. We have now 14 recovering Governors who serve in the 
U.S. Senate. I am proud to say that he and I are two of them. I 
am going to yield to him right now. Thank you.
    Senator Ricketts. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 
thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us here today to 
talk about this very important topic of permitting reform.
    The permitting process takes too long and costs taxpayers 
too much money. And with all the ambitious projects that we 
have for our country, not the least of which is creating more 
power generation, transmission generation, roads and bridges, 
permitting is going to be very important to get right, so that 
we can get these projects done.
    One of the things this Committee has heard me talk about is 
the permitting reform we did in Nebraska. We leveraged a 
process improvement methodology called Lean Six Sigma to 
streamline the processes, so for example for our construction 
permits, we were able to take the time it takes down, because 
we limited the number of processes from 110 down to 22, and 
that cut the process down from 190 days to 65 days.
    No. 1 was our Green Streets we did in our department of 
transportation. We cut that from 87 steps down to 60. That 
process went down from 16 days to 3 days. So in a variety of 
ways, we have been able to streamline the process just by 
getting rid of duplicative steps.
    Ms. Mallory, at the Council for Environmental Quality, are 
you familiar with Lean Six Sigma or other process improvement 
methodologies?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you so much for that question, Senator. 
I am not specifically with Lean Six Sigma. I am familiar with 
lean processes. That is something that the Federal Government 
has done in the past. I would say just in terms of the framing 
that you put on it, our goal as we have been talking today is 
to make sure that we have smart decisions that are meeting our 
environmental requirements, and including public engagement.
    If looking at Lean is a tool that shows ways in which we 
can do that, I think we would be open to learning more about 
what the system offers and how it could fit in.
    Senator Ricketts. OK, great. I presume from your response 
that you are not aware of anybody who is using it right now 
within those areas.
    Ms. Mallory. Specifically not what you described. I know 
that Lean has been done in the Federal Government for other----
    Senator Ricketts. But not associated with the permitting 
process.
    Ms. Mallory. Yes, correct. I am not aware of that.
    Senator Ricketts. OK, great, thanks.
    Mr. Miller, are you familiar with lean processes?
    Mr. Miller. Yes, sir.
    Senator Ricketts. Would you say just generally, like 
looking at how you can streamline the processes, you are not 
changing any sort of requirements, just as, it would be a good 
thing to implement?
    Mr. Miller. Yes. Absolutely. I am not a Lean Six Sigma 
black belt, but I am familiar with it. Process reengineering is 
something that is absolutely necessary in this space. I think 
what you are speaking to, cutting out unnecessary steps, 
unnecessary back and forth, one of the complicating factors in 
this instance is steps required between agencies. So we both 
have to do processes that look internally within an agency, and 
then more broadly as well as the engagement from that process 
with State and local governments, and the project sponsors to 
just cut out waste from the system.
    Senator Ricketts. Funny you should mention black belts, Mr. 
Miller, because we actually trained up a number of our 
teammates, everybody got white belt training, which is the 
introductory level, but we also trained up over 5,000 yellow 
belts, we did green belts, executive green belts. And then our 
black belts actually were responsible for working on processes 
that involved multiple agencies within the State of Nebraska. 
So there is an opportunity there.
    Ms. Harada, thank you very much for your work on the 
Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council. Are you 
familiar with Lean Six Sigma or similar types of process 
improvements?
    Ms. Harada. Thank you for your question, Senator. As a 
former management consultant, I am rather familiar with Lean 
Six. I think the work you did in Nebraska is fantastic,
    To build on both my colleagues' answers to your previous 
question, sir, we are indeed undertaking some of those types of 
efforts with much more focus on a particular project, if you 
will, working through both not just from the process step side 
of things but also from the policy and ensuring there is good 
data sharing, both between the Federal agencies as well as with 
the State governments that we are working with as well.
    Senator Ricketts. I am going to put you on the spot a 
little bit. As you have reviewed some of this stuff, where do 
you think the biggest obstacles are in the processes? What 
process in particular has the most opportunity for improvement?
    Ms. Harada. Thank you, Senator, for that great question. I 
attribute the fundamental issues to three things. First is 
around, as my colleague Jason Miller was just articulating, 
data sharing. Enhancing the technology and the types of data 
that we should be sharing, not just amongst the Federal 
agencies, but also with our State colleagues, and with the 
project developers would be absolutely vital to ensuring that 
we are cutting down the timeframe and making that a lot more 
efficient.
    Second, agreeing on what the information elements are and 
should be. We find in our experience at the Permitting Council 
that frequently there is a lost in translation element, that 
frequently Federal agency biologist nerds don't speak broadband 
deployment.
    Senator Ricketts. I am a biology major, just so you know. 
Careful there.
    Ms. Harada. I am an aerospace engineer major, yes.
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. Harada. Therefore, that type of nerd speak, they don't 
speak the same kind of English. So we do serve that type of 
translating role, if you will.
    And certainly last but not least, having that clarity 
around what the master chart, GAANT chart should look like, 
what is the critical path for ensuring that we can get the 
permitting process through. Having that kind of transparency 
and coordinated project plan I think is also super critical to 
ensuring that those kinds of processes go much more smoothly.
    Senator Ricketts. Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate 
it.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Carper. I think you two have found a common cause. 
You speak the same language; that is great.
    We have been joined by Senator Merkley, welcome. And by 
Senator Markey.
    Senator Merkley, you are recognized. Thanks for coming.
    Senator Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Mallory, if we were to burn all of the identified 
reserves of fossil gas, coal, and oil, would we break the 1.5 
degrees goal for humanity?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you, Senator, for that question. I feel 
like I can't quite answer that. I know burning all of the 
reserved fossil gas would be problematic. I can't answer the 
question in the way you framed it.
    Senator Merkley. OK. So most of the estimates are that if 
we burn half of the identified reserves, collectively, we break 
1.5 degrees. Is that a problem?
    Ms. Mallory. Again, thank you. As you know, the 
Administration is very focused on meeting a net zero goal by 
2050. And the President's agenda is very focused on 
decarbonizing as quickly as we can.
    So those are the steps that we are taking to sort of move 
in that direction, recognizing that we are in a transition 
which does not enable us to stop everything.
    Senator Merkley. So we already have a massive amount of 
fossils that have already been permitted for extraction 
currently in the United States, a massive amount. Given that 
burning half of the reserves in the world that are currently 
identified, why is the Administration approving new fossil gas 
and fossil oil projects?
    Ms. Mallory. Again, thank you for the question. I think 
what the Administration is doing is recognizing that we are 
moving in a certain direction, but we are in a transition 
phase. We are not in a position where we can completely stop 
approving all projects today. We are getting to that point, and 
doing it by reducing the amount and the way in which some of 
the projects have been approved.
    Senator Merkley. Let me just say, factually, 
scientifically, you are wrong. That we have already issued 
extraction permits for a vast amount of additional fossils. 
Therefore, no new permits are required for new oil and gas and 
coal.
    So I find it interesting to read that the proposal being 
promoted on the House side is to do permitting reform that 
allows new fossil gas permits while delaying discussion of what 
we really need, which is transmission capacity in our 
electrical network. Shouldn't it be the reverse? Shouldn't we 
be focusing on permitting for the transmission of electric 
power first, rather than focusing on expediting or increasing 
the number of fossil fuel permits?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you, again, Senator, for that question. 
I think this Administration is very focused on transmission and 
is using the tools that we have available to us now to address 
transmission in a way that is expedited. The Memorandum of 
Understanding that was signed last week by a number of the 
agencies is designed to help us use our tools and the authority 
that the Department of Energy has under the Federal Power Act 
to move forward on transmission as quickly as possible.
    But that is a place where there is a need for congressional 
action.
    Senator Merkley. So I can have confidence that absolutely 
the Administration will reject any path forward that involves 
more permitting for fossil fuel projects, while delaying any 
changes or any debate on improving transmission?
    Ms. Mallory. Senator, what I am saying is that we 
understand the importance of transmission moving forward, and 
trying to have the tools necessary for that.
    Senator Merkley. So you cannot assure me that the 
Administration will not agree to more fossil fuel permitting 
while leaving transmission to a later date?
    Ms. Mallory. No, Senator, I can't.
    Senator Merkley. Well, that is horrific. Because we are in 
a situation; my State is burning up from climate change. We 
already have issued permits for a vast amount of additional 
fossil fuel extraction. We need to pivot to renewables quickly, 
and should be expediting the thing that make that possible, not 
issuing new fossils while blocking the things that will make 
renewable possible, which is electric transmission. Don't you 
agree with that?
    Ms. Mallory. I think, Senator, as I said, the 
Administration is trying to look holistically at where we are 
at this moment and trying to move as quickly as possible toward 
the decarbonization and using our means to do that. There are 
circumstances in which I think the Administration has felt that 
permitting was necessary, and that is how they acted.
    Senator Merkley. I will close by noting I was just recently 
in Southeast Asia. One of the countries I was in was Indonesia, 
which has a very large coal industry. I have also spent time in 
India, which as a very large coal industry. I have had 
conversations, I lead the dialogue between American legislators 
and Indian legislators at the Paris Talks.
    The Indian legislators said, hey, why should we take on our 
coal industry while the U.S., which has one of the largest 
carbon footprints per person in the world, where we have one of 
the smaller ones, is still permitting new oil and gas? Why 
should we take on our coal industry?
    I was just in Indonesia; they have a big coal industry. 
They have put out a theoretical vision for 2050, which is 
great. But it is like a castle in the sky. You ask them, you 
hold the conversations, and they are like, yes, we are not 
doing anything concrete. We have a powerful coal industry, and 
look, the United States is still issuing permits for new fossil 
fuels.
    So the point I am ending on is that one, we don't need to 
issue any new permits for fossils, because we have already 
issued a huge amount for fossils to be extracted in the decades 
to come. Second, doing so is undermining any moral authority 
the U.S. has to help lead the world in tackling climate change. 
And this is the biggest issue facing humanity, and it is a huge 
mistake.
    Thank you.
    Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Merkley.
    We have been joined by Senator Cramer.
    It is good to see you.
    Senator Cramer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you all for being here.
    I am glad I got here for the last couple of minutes of 
that, because I am perplexed by the idea that somehow, we have 
plenty of fossil fuel permits issued, well into the future. We 
have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of prepared permit 
applications on Federal land in North Dakota, the cleanest oil, 
by the way, in the world, and produced the cleanest, in North 
Dakota. Even after a judge has ordered the Administration to 
stop violating their law and doing the required by law 
quarterly auctions on the Federal lands. It is incredible. And 
the idea that somehow we are going to electrify everything with 
some new transmission.
    By the way, I sited lots of transmission lines when I was 
on the North Dakota Public Service Commission. I never had a 
hard time permitting a transmission line in North Dakota. Never 
did.
    Now, we always had trouble when we got to the Red River, 
beyond that. So we had to trick the system in ways, we would 
take more transmission of our product into the big towns in 
North Dakota and use existing transmission lines to move our 
other electricity, the legacy lines that had gone into 
Minnesota for decades, whether it was wind or coal or natural 
gas, we have all of the above.
    So I empathize a little bit with the siting of 
transmission. But I don't think that what we are talking about, 
if we do what H.R. 1 is suggesting, it is not just about 
fossil, it is about all energy. It is fuel neutral. But when 
you start talking about paying for these projects that are 
localized, that is where things get complicated.
    I believe, and one thing I love about Senator Merkley is he 
likes to debate.
    We don't do enough of it, do we, Jeff?
    We don't do enough debating around here, enough talking. 
All of that, and I haven't even begun.
    Anyway, I thank you all for being here. I have a question I 
may not ever get to. But first of all, I am disappointed that 
there aren't any agencies here that actually issue permits. I 
am hoping, Mr. Chairman, we will have one of those too, at a 
hearing.
    Senator Carper. If you want us to, we just might do that.
    Senator Cramer. I appreciate that. Not that you all are not 
important to the process, but we need to talk to some people 
that actually permit some things.
    Do you guys think, and I will start with you, Ms. Mallory, 
since you oversee, CEQ oversees NEPA and obviously there are 
projects, and we had a lot of discussion, bipartisan 
discussion, about the process and the timelines as we have been 
talking about. Do you think timelines can be an enforceable 
thing? In other words, whether it is a 2 year EIS, 1 year EA, 
how would we enforce that? Do you worry that it can be gamed by 
the favored fuel? Whichever fuel that might be, it could be on 
either side. Do you worry about that?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you, Senator, for that question. I think 
what we have tried to focus on in our permitting action plan is 
a recognition that we need to have agencies focus on what is 
possible on a particular project, so that you have ambitious 
timelines, and that you set those timelines in ways that allow 
the agencies to take into account what the requirements on that 
project are or what the specifics of that area are, but that 
you use that as a driving force behind their behavior.
    Then the accountability measures actually come through the 
oversight, the interaction that we have with the leadership of 
the agencies, making sure that they are staying on track, and 
that we have the ability to respond when they need additional 
resources or when we need to have agencies share, or 
interagency process to work more effectively.
    That is what we are using. I believe it is an appropriate 
way to address oversight.
    Senator Cramer. One of the things, when we were siting 
pipelines in North Dakota, and I have sited a lot, the original 
Keystone Pipeline, 600 landowners, not one inch of it was 
taken, not one inch of that land was taken. That is kind of 
amazing. I don't know that we could do it today.
    But even gathering lines on Federal lands and what not, we 
found a way to streamline the process through the interagency 
process, with actually adding environmental protections. In 
other words, there was even more review, because there was a 
synergy of all the agencies working at the same time, rather 
than in chronological order. They were working collaboratively.
    This is a win-win. Whatever side of the issue you are on, 
that seems like a win-win. We need to get to that. I don't know 
that another council in the process actually helps it a lot.
    I was going to ask you about major questions, doctrine at 
the courts, the potential Chevron doctrine, and the impact that 
might have.
    Senator Carper. Go ahead.
    Senator Cramer. Does anybody have any thoughts on that? The 
court's recent decision in West Virginia v. EPA, for example, I 
know it is not permitting specifically, but it is related 
policy in terms of agencies taking authorities that weren't 
granted them. Do you watch that more carefully now that the 
court has said, no, listen, the absence of a prohibition is not 
a license to create power for yourself?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you for the question, Senator. Obviously 
when the Supreme Court rules on an environmental policy, we 
take that very seriously and organize ourselves with that in 
mind.
    Senator Cramer. Good answer. Thank you.
    I am sorry we didn't have more time. I got fired up.
    Senator Carper. That is a good thing.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. Good morning, Senator Markey. How are you 
doing?
    Senator Markey. I am fired up; I am ready to go.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Markey. This is a great hearing. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Senator Carper. In that case, we could be here for a while.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Markey. Right now, our project development systems 
in the country, it is like a car moving slowly down a bumpy 
road. Some of the Republican proposals for permitting are the 
equivalent of trying to fix the car by throwing out the brakes 
and the steering column. You would go faster, but you wouldn't 
end up anywhere good.
    So Chair Mallory, when changes to the National 
Environmental Policy Act, such as requiring approvals within a 
strict timeline, or setting firm page limits, how many pages 
you can actually use in trying to describe a decision that is 
being made, will they help to speed up project permitting, or 
would they complicate the process?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you, Senator, for that question. I think 
what we have done in our action plan is to focus on the 
importance of having accountable goals and targets that we are 
working for. We think that that is a helpful mechanism for the 
system and that it enables both the agencies to work around it, 
but also gives some transparency to the public.
    So we think it is important to have goals. Those goals from 
our perspective need to be mindful of what is required of a 
particular project development, so that you are actually 
focused on what are the needs in that situation, and that may 
make adjustments along the way.
    So we think that you could have projects that go faster 
than your targets. But you can also have projects that 
recognize that some adjustments may be necessary.
    Senator Markey. Ms. Harada, in your experience with 
projects going through the Permitting Council, would shortened 
NEPA timelines help or hurt interagency coordination?
    Ms. Harada. Thank you so much for the question, Senator. As 
you may be familiar, the Permitting Council works with the most 
complicated projects of the 100,000 or so projects that are 
permitted every year. We truly are working on the .1 percent or 
so of the largest and most complicated infrastructure projects.
    With respect to your question on page limits and what not, 
I think that whatever types of suggestions and targets we want 
to implement, make sure that we are not unnecessarily or very 
rigidly constraining the agencies from arriving at the best 
solutions, whether they be from a technical perspective, of 
course, obviously environmental protections, but ensuring that 
there is really good and sustainable community outcomes, 
excellent tribal engagement, so that we are all on the same 
page in lockstep with respect to ensuring that we are 
delivering an infrastructure project that is actually viable.
    Senator Markey. Thank you. Yes, to really fix the slow 
progress of developing projects that can help our communities 
thrive, we don't need to attack NEPA. We need better road 
signs, better drivers, a better road. And that means including 
environmental justice communities early in the process, 
improving staffing and chains of command in the Administration 
and in State and local agencies, and implementing policies that 
will fix our transmission system.
    Ms. Harada, if NEPA timelines or page limits for reviews 
are not the issue here, what do you observe as major drivers 
for delays in the system today?
    Ms. Harada. Thank you so much for the question, Senator. I 
think it is truly thoughtful, because the true drivers of major 
permitting delays largely are threefold. First, there is 
insufficient engagement up front with the communities that are 
potentially impacted, the tribal nations that need to be 
involved in the process. Nobody likes a surprise. Nobody likes 
a solution to be imposed upon them. It is an incredibly useful 
and a fantastic investment up front to engage those communities 
in the overall project design.
    Second is around ensuring data quality and collective 
understanding between Federal agencies, State agencies involved 
in the process, as well as the project sponsors with respect to 
what data needs are specifically required in order to be able 
to answer the pertinent questions.
    Certainly, last but not least in that regard, ensuring that 
there is sufficient agency capacity available to be able to 
actually do the work that is needed to ensure that we are 
following the respective authorities.
    Senator Markey. Thank you. And if we don't have public 
engagement and consultation with tribal and environmental 
justice groups, and if environmental assessment and impact 
statements are rushed or poorly done, progress can be held up 
in the courts and wind up with even more opposition from local 
stakeholders. It is a paradox.
    Chair Mallory, would you please elaborate on how a robust 
NEPA process and engagement with environmental justice 
communities can actually help prevent delays in project 
development?
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you, Senator. You are speaking to what 
we believe is a really important part of the process and 
ensuring that we can keep to the timelines.
    NEPA has always encouraged early engagement with 
communities, early and often is the phrase that is commonly 
used. And in the Permitting Action Plan, as well as our 
engagement with the agencies across the board, we are 
emphasizing that, because we do think that it allows for 
avoiding some of the problems that might be unknown or not 
learned about until late, and the result of that is extending 
the process because of litigation or because of just the 
concern of communities not being willing to buy in because of a 
lack of trust.
    So we definitely encourage that.
    Senator Markey. Thank you.
    Obviously, our conversation about developing a clean energy 
future shouldn't focus myopically on NEPA and permitting of new 
projects. Issues like transmission planning, cost allocation, 
interconnection lines, are also delaying much needed investment 
in clean energy transmission.
    While I will be reintroducing my CHARGE Act to direct the 
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take action to address 
these and other issues, FERC could act to fix these issues 
right now, without any need for new legislation, with their 
inherent authority that they already have.
    Mr. Miller, do you agree that FERC has the ability to 
improve the way clean energy projects get planned and connected 
to the grid already with the existing authority?
    Mr. Miller. Senator, thank you for the question, and thank 
you for your attention to this topic and making sure that we 
are all focused on the need for more transmission, including 
some of the small projects that are interconnects, that are 
critical for offshore wind.
    I know there is some debate on the use of FERC authorities. 
It is clearly a priority of this Administration. We outlined it 
in terms of potential legislation. I understand that FERC is 
also looking at ways to utilize its authorities including 
through regulation. There is a pending seat that would be 
required to be filled to move forward on certain regulations.
    But solving this problem, whether through existing 
authorities and new legislation, we have to do it or we will 
not meet our climate goals.
    Senator Markey. Yes. So that is the bottom line, we have a 
two to two FERC, we have got a two to two Federal 
Communications Commission. Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say, 
if you didn't want to help an issue or hurt an issue, you just 
engaged in benign neglect, you just don't do anything.
    But this is different. This is designed neglect. It is not 
giving the agencies the resources they need. It is not having a 
fifth commissioner to break the ties. It is not making it 
possible for us to be able to move forward when all the 
inherent authority is there. It is designed neglect of a 
system.
    Then turning and saying, well, the answer is more 
permitting. We need actually more fossil fuel projects that are 
put online while there is delays that are built into the system 
because of designed neglect for the transmission system to be 
modernized so that we can have the clean energy be put on it to 
remove the need for additional fossil fuels.
    Thank you all so much for your testimony.
    Mr. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence in letting me 
go on a little bit longer.
    Senator Carper. Before the Senator from Massachusetts 
leaves, I want to thank you for the CHARGE Act. Our staff and I 
spent a fair amount of time with your staff; you and I 
discussed it. I think it needs to be included in whatever 
proposal comes out of this Committee going forward. So thank 
you very much for that.
    Senator Markey. And I thank you and your staff as well. 
They have been great.
    Senator Carper. You bet. We have got a couple more 
questions, and I am going to lead into this question. It will 
be a question for each of you to answer.
    I go to work almost every day on the train. Biden used to 
do that; we used to actually ride together sometimes.
    Another guy who used to ride the train a lot was Albert 
Einstein, believe it or not. I think he got on at Dartmouth, 
and he would take the train up to New York, or he would take 
the train down to Washington quite a bit.
    One day he got on the train, sat down, and he started 
looking for his train ticket, and he couldn't find it. The 
conductor came by, and he said, I have been in this predicament 
before, but he was looking for his train ticket, he was looking 
in his coat, his pants, looking in his briefcase and couldn't 
find it. The conductor comes along, a young guy, and he said, 
Dr. Einstein, we know you, we know who you are. You are good, 
it is OK, we know who you are.
    The conductor started to walk out of the car, goes to the 
other end of the car, he was about to enter into the next car. 
He looked back over his shoulder and Dr. Einstein was down on 
hands and knees, still looking for his train ticket. The 
conductor rushes back and says, Dr. Einstein, we know who you 
are. You don't have to do this; we know who you are.
    Dr. Einstein looked up at him and said, I know who I am, 
too, I just don't know where I am going. Isn't that a great 
story?
    I said earlier in the hearing that I thought there might be 
three objectives that we should pursue in terms of where we are 
going. I have modified that during the course of this hearing, 
what we need is to maybe think about four objectives in terms 
of where we are going. I want to mention those to you and ask 
each of you to think out loud about which ones make sense, 
which ones don't, or if they need to be modified.
    Four objectives. The first, any serious proposal must 
reduce greenhouse gas emissions while upholding our Nation's 
bedrock environmental statutes. I will say that again. Any 
serious proposal must reduce greenhouse gas emissions and 
uphold our Nation's bedrock environmental statutes. That would 
be one.
    Second would be, address transmission barriers that make it 
harder, address transmission barriers that make it harder for 
renewables to connect to the grid, address those barriers that 
make it harder for renewables to connect to the grid.
    Third would be that those proposals must support early and 
meaningful community engagement. Those proposals must support 
early and meaningful community engagement.
    The fourth, in terms of where we are going, would be the 
legislation that we eventually adopt and send to the President 
must provide businesses with certainty and predictability. Must 
provide businesses with certainty and predictability, that they 
need to make long term decisions. Again, provide certainty and 
predictability to businesses that need to make informed long 
term decisions.
    This is probably not an all inclusive list, but my staff 
and I worked on this a little bit. I have tried to put it in 
terms and words that folks can understand.
    Let me ask each of you to think out loud on this.
    Christine, why don't you go first? If you say those are the 
four dumbest ideas I have ever heard, I won't be offended. But 
I don't think you will say that.
    Ms. Harada. Thank you for the opportunity, Senator. I am in 
violent agreement as much as possible with those four 
objectives.
    Senator Carper. Did you say violent agreement? I like that. 
We don't hear that very often.
    Ms. Harada. Yes. I don't want to pound this table.
    Senator Carper. We need to have more violent agreement in 
the Senate.
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. Harada. If I may offer up one clarifier, if it is OK 
with you.
    Senator Carper. Please.
    Ms. Harada. With respect to the third bullet around early 
and meaningful community engagement, 100 percent. If I may also 
add a clarifier with respect to tribal nation and government to 
government consultation, please. Frequently in our experience, 
specifically calling out tribal nation engagement is key in 
ensuring that Federal agencies are indeed prompted to go out 
and actually do it. So that would be super critical, please.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you. And thank you for 
introducing a new term, violent agreement. That is great.
    Mr. Miller, please.
    Mr. Miller. Thank you, Senator. I think this is a good 
list. What I would add to it, and one of the common themes you 
heard from the three of us in many of the questions is ensuring 
that we have systems in place inside of our agency, including 
the technology systems, data systems, and people, need to 
actually carry out this work. It is absolutely critical, and 
something that we have underinvested in for far too long.
    Senator Carper. Good. Do you think we continue to 
underinvest, or do you think we have sort of atoned for our 
sins with respect to investing?
    Mr. Miller. I think the investments in the Inflation 
Reduction Act in particular, with the $1.1 billion, both 
agencies and FPISC, is a critical step forward. We have to 
execute on those investments, and that is what we are working 
on right now. That focus, and ensuring that we continued to 
have those resources, we get appropriate appropriations on an 
ongoing basis so that agencies have certainty, so they can make 
multi-year technology investments, is often a place that we 
stumble.
    Senator Carper. OK, good. Thank you.
    Chair Mallory. Do you like to be called Chair Mallory?
    Ms. Mallory. I actually like to be called Brenda, but 
nobody listens.
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you for that list as well, Senator. I 
agree with both of the additions that my colleagues have made. 
I think in particular, just in talking about upholding the 
bedrock statutes, I want to underscore the emphasis on having 
sort of smart decisions that are based in science. I think that 
is a critical element that we want to not lose.
    Holding on to that may also affect what is a reasonable 
choice when you start to talk about timelines and other ways to 
frame the way the process runs. So reminding ourselves that 
that is our anchor. The point of a permitting system is to 
protect the public. And we want to make sure that whatever we 
do doesn't lose sight of that.
    Thank you very much.
    Senator Carper. Be guided by science, continue to be guided 
by science. Some of my colleagues and I are big music fans. 
Going back in time, there was a guy who was a one hit wonder, 
his name was Thomas Dolby. He had one big hit, and the song was 
``She Blinded Me With Science.'' You may remember that one.
    I always say, we don't want to be blinded by science, but 
we ought to be guided by science. And hopefully, that will 
continue to underwrite everything that we do. With apologies to 
Thomas Dolby.
    All right, we have been joined by a terrific colleague from 
a large State, one of the two largest States in America.
    Senator Whitehouse. Rhode Island and Delaware.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Carper. Joined at the hip. Actually, we are joined 
at the hip on a lot of issues as well, including the ones we 
are talking about here today. I am delighted to yield time to 
him right now.
    Sheldon, welcome.
    Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman.
    First of all, I believe very much that this Committee has a 
very important role to play in the permitting reform 
conversation that is going to take place in the Senate. I 
appreciate your leadership in making sure that this Committee's 
role is real and vindicated.
    I look forward to working with you, and I thank you for 
including the transmission siting proposal in the bill. I hope 
to be able to get you an offshore wind permitting reform 
proposal shortly. We are going through the final strokes on 
that.
    That really is going to be my topic with this terrific 
panel of witnesses. Thank you all for being here.
    Rhode Island is very close to offshore wind. As you know, 
we solved the siting problem first and got the first steel in 
the water and the first electrons on the grid. I was very close 
to that process at the State and Federal level as it went out.
    What I have seen is the offshore wind industry come in with 
enormous enthusiasm and confidence, but it has been replaced by 
anxiety and caution. I think we are at risk of losing offshore 
wind projects. Eversource, which is one of the partners in a 
big offshore project off of Rhode Island, announced to its 
investors that it was getting out of offshore wind because it 
no longer saw it as a viable business proposition. And there 
seems to be considerable anxiety about the permitting and 
regulatory uncertainties and delays that are driving that 
perception of risk.
    So I think we are close to having a real problem in that 
area if that isn't addressed quickly. I know that the so called 
sherpa left the White House who was guiding this. I don't know 
if there is a new sherpa to help move through.
    I am terrified by ``interagency process.'' I know it is a 
phrase that everybody loves, and it does indeed get everybody 
in the room. But it is very often, I think, death by 
interagency process that ensues. But the pace of interagency 
process is the pace of the slowest and least competent and most 
recalcitrant agency in the interagency process. At the end of 
the day, nobody is accountable for the interagency process, 
everybody just points at each other for a failure.
    So I am very, very anxious that the interagency process as 
a solution to what I see as a very dramatic degradation of 
confidence and enthusiasm in the offshore wind industry and our 
ability to get these projects on to a reasonable timeline for 
investment. It is more problem than solution. I worry that we 
are getting to the place where unless some real hands on 
leadership takes place, we are going to see companies backing 
away, and we are going to see the President's pledge to get to 
30 gigawatts of offshore wind simply no longer feasible.
    So I would really urge, if there is stuff you need in our 
offshore wind permitting reform, get it to me now. We need to 
move this along.
    I will flag one other piece of legislation I think is 
important, which is our RISE bill. If you want to do offshore 
wind in the Gulf of Mexico, then to set up a situation in which 
when the local neighboring States, their legislatures, and 
their Governor look at further investment in oil and gas and 
see a 37 percent share of revenues coming to their State, and 
they look at an offshore wind alternative to that and see from 
that investment zero coming to their State, that is a pretty 
easy equation for a speaker who has to put a budget together or 
a Governor who has to work with the legislature to say, oops, 
we are getting the signal from the Federal Government that we 
want more oil and gas exploration.
    We are rewarding States for pursuing oil and gas 
exploration. And when it comes to the offshore wind, I think 
the Delawarean and Rhode Island term would be bupkis.
    So I think the Administration may need a reset on the 
offshore wind process. And I am more than happy to participate 
in trying to accommodate that. But I really, really, really 
don't want to see this turn into a cascade of failures as more 
companies pull away from projects.
    Senator Carper. We have our work cut out for us. But I 
think we can do this. I like to quote Henry Ford, who used to 
say, among other things, ``If you think you can, or you think 
you can't, you are right.'' ``If you think you can, or you 
think you can't, you are right.''
    Senator Whitehouse. Let's make this a ``can.'' We really do 
need those 30 gigawatts; we really do need these jobs. It 
really is important, and we really need to get out of our own 
way.
    Senator Carper. There you go.
    I have a couple of specific questions for you, but I am 
going to ask a general question for each of you. Something you 
would like to have been asked but you were not asked, if you 
would like to pose a question and then answer it, I would like 
for you to do that. What you would have liked to have been 
asked but were not asked that you think is appropriate, and 
give us a good answer for that. I don't do this for every 
panel, you know, just special panels.
    Mr. Miller. I was hoping Senator Markey would follow up 
after he was talking through the dynamics on transmission and 
the challenges, including the prioritization around making sure 
that we are reforming the permitting process. The specific item 
when we are talking about whether it is a good or bad thing to 
have equivalents across different technologies, the specific 
thing that we are talking about is having Federal backstop 
authority.
    That is a thing that currently exists for natural gas 
pipelines. But we don't have it in the same way for 
transmission lines.
    I don't think there is objection to the existing backstop 
authority associated with natural gas pipelines from this 
Committee, at least not that I am aware of. So that should be a 
proposal, consistent with an approach with another technology 
where it has support for us to be able to move forward.
    Senator Carper. That is good. Let me ask both majority 
staff and minority staff to write that one down.
    In the Navy, when we used to do training for airplanes and 
ships and everything, or we would have somebody who was a 
lecturer who was training our enlisted officers, they would 
reach a point where it was like a really important point, if it 
was going to show up on a test later on, we would say whoever 
was lecturing would stomp their foot. And that might be a foot 
stomper. So I hope we will not forget that one.
    This is my favorite part of the hearing. I get to make a 
unanimous consent request sometimes when nobody is here except 
the folks in the audience and me, and ask unanimous consent 
that something happen, and there is nobody to object. So it 
just happens. Today, Senator Whitehouse can object if he 
wishes. I hope he won't.
    My unanimous consent would be this. There are a number of 
permitting bills that have been released, and I too intend to 
release a bill soon, a draft proposal very soon. It is 
important that we get this right. So I would like to ask 
unanimous consent to request that members of the public share 
feedback on these permitting bills with this Committee. And 
there are several of them, and one that we will be unveiling 
very soon. We welcome comments from the public on what they 
like, what they don't like, and maybe they have some good 
ideas.
    Without objection, so ordered.
    [The referenced information follows:]
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    Ms. Mallory. Senator, can I go back to your last question, 
please?
    Senator Carper. Are you going to object to my unanimous 
consent request? I've never had a witness do that.
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. Mallory. I don't object to your unanimous consent 
request. That is wonderful.
    The one thing I wanted to raise that I was not asked but I 
think is important is that one of the things that we at CEQ are 
working on is the completion of the rulemaking process that we 
started under, the President asked us to look at whether we 
needed to make changes to the previous Administration's rules. 
We said, yes, we thought we did, and we were going to do it in 
two phases. We did phase one, we are working on phase two and 
hoping to get phase two out very soon.
    But it also builds on many of the themes that we have heard 
here today. So when that proposal comes out, hopefully in a 
matter of weeks, and people can look to that and see how it 
fits into our efforts for greater efficiency, our efforts to 
make sure that environmental justice communities are integrated 
into our process and our efforts to ensure that climate change 
is addressed appropriately.
    Senator Carper. Thank you for adding that.
    Ms. Harada, I don't think we gave you an opportunity to ask 
a question of yourself and then answer it.
    Ms. Harada. Yes, sir, thank you again for the opportunity. 
There are a couple of things that would certainly be absolutely 
helpful in enhancing the overall permitting efficiency overall. 
The first thing, and I know we have discussed this in the 
hearing, is around ensuring that there are also State and local 
government alignment and capabilities as well. They serve just 
as important a role in getting these infrastructure projects 
permitted.
    Senator Carper. As a recovering Governor, I approve of this 
message.
    Ms. Harada. Thank you very much, sir. Second, investing in 
the fundamental capabilities for enabling permitting. I know 
that Jason has touched on investing in the data management 
processes, ensuring that we have the permitting work force that 
we need and the experts appropriately in place to be able to do 
that.
    Last but not least, providing some additional clarity to 
those agencies to be able to leverage some of the categorical 
exclusions and other methods that provide for efficiency would 
be super helpful.
    Senator Carper. Good. That is very helpful. Thank you for 
that.
    I have a follow up question, Mr. Miller, for you, that I 
would like to ask. We will see if you can take a shot at it.
    We hear a lot about how the courts are slowing down 
projects. We heard a little bit of that here in this hearing 
today. I have seen some legislative proposals that remove 
judicial review, Federal permits altogether. What are the real 
world implications of eliminating judicial review for 
environmental reviews and permits? In your view, is there a 
better way to facilitate timely judicial reviews?
    Mr. Miller. Chairman, thank you for that question, and for 
raising a topic which has been touched on lightly here today, 
but I know is a part of proposals, it is part of various 
statutes, including the FAST-41 statute in terms of time limits 
associated with judicial review.
    Having a mechanism to resolve conflicts when there is 
fundamental disagreement is important. It is important that we 
are able to identify those issues on the front end. One of the 
reasons that community engagement is so critical is so that we 
are not creating an incentive for conflict later in the 
process.
    But we have to have a mechanism to resolve conflict. That 
mechanism should not drag out, because we need to ultimately 
resolve conflict or we just have brewing conflict.
    Senator Carper. All right, good. Thank you for that.
    A question, I know you invited us to call you Brenda, I 
will stick with Ms. Mallory for now. The President recently 
released an executive order on environmental justice, as you 
know, which directs agencies to consider the cumulative effects 
of pollution and other burdens like climate change in their 
actions.
    Would you speak to us for a minute or two about why it is 
important to consider cumulative impacts as part of 
environmental reviews?
    Ms. Mallory. Yes, Senator, thank you so much for that 
question.
    Yes, and I will just say that for all of the work that this 
Administration is doing on environmental justice, one of the 
key factors that we are focused on is ensuring that all 
communities get the benefit of clean air, clean water, and a 
safe community. That is the premise on which we are operating.
    The executive order really builds on what the National 
Environmental Policy Act has required for all but the time that 
the previous Administration was in effect, which is direct, 
indirect, and cumulative effects. That is what the analysis 
requires.
    So what we are saying for environmental justice communities 
in particular is that if you are building, whatever the project 
may be, if you hone in only on that project and not think about 
the context in which it is being set, then you are not really 
fully considering what the impacts are that the people who live 
there are experiencing.
    So that is what cumulative impact is about. It says you 
have to not only look at the item that is causing the action, 
but what context is that being set in from an environmental as 
well as a human health perspective. So that is what we are 
trying to ensure, that communities that have experienced under-
investment and that have suffered from legacy pollution 
actually have those issues addressed.
    Senator Carper. All right, thank you.
    I am going to give a short closing statement. I will start 
off by saying, thanks so much, thanks for what you do with your 
lives and thank you for your willingness to work with us.
    I am not sure who said this, I used to think it was my dad, 
but I have heard it a lot in my life, the hardest things to do 
are sometimes the things most worth doing. I think what we are 
trying to do here is not easy, in fact, it is pretty hard.
    This Committee is pretty good at doing the hard things, and 
we are proud of that. Our ability to help write major portions 
of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that we talked about 
earlier, the work we have done in the last Congress and again 
in this Congress on recycling legislation, we are working now, 
Senator Capito and her staff and my staff, on perma-chemicals, 
PFAS and PFOA and all those.
    None of these are easy. But they sure are important. And we 
find one of the best ways to make progress is to do it 
together. I like to say bipartisan solutions are lasting 
solutions. Senator Capito and I and our colleagues are pretty 
good at that, with the help of our staffs.
    Anything that you all would like to say, each of you, just 
briefly, maybe a minute, in terms of helping us get to those 
bipartisan solutions? A lot of times people focus on the things 
we want to fight about, disagree about, but something that 
might be helpful as we go forward to get us to closure and 
something that we can embrace through the legislation, the 
legislation can embrace as can the environmental community, or 
the States, Tribes. Maybe just one thing you could say, as you 
get ready to take your pens out and write this legislation, 
don't forget this.
    Ms. Harada. Thank you, Senator, for the question.
    Senator Carper. You can repeat. Repetition is not bad.
    Ms. Harada. I think we have done a reasonably thorough job 
of covering the major elements of any such proposed 
legislation, and we very much look forward to rolling up our 
sleeves and working with you. Please don't hesitate to call us. 
We are absolutely happy to jump in on this.
    Senator Carper. Great. Thanks so much.
    Mr. Miller.
    Mr. Miller. Thank you. Two things, just reiterating what 
you were saying, making sure that we are moving forward on 
bipartisan reforms is critical.
    Two, one small thing that we haven't touched on extensively 
here but part of what we have been trying to do in all these 
things is take an enterprise approach to permitting, rather 
than doing the same thing 27 different times on 27 different 
projects. One of the ways in which we can do that is expansion 
of the use of programmatic reviews.
    To the extent we can do that administratively, we are 
seeking opportunities to do so. To the extent additional 
legislation is needed to do it in drafting agencies, that is an 
area that I think is fruitful.
    Senator Carper. Good. Thank you.
    Ms. Mallory.
    Ms. Mallory. Thank you. I feel like I have said everything 
that is most important to say. The only thing I would add is 
just using as an anchor as you are thinking through the ways in 
which we can improve the permitting system, what the impact is 
going to be on communities and people, I think that will help 
us to lead to a result that we will all be proud of. Thank you.
    Senator Carper. I heard a great quote from Teddy Roosevelt, 
I was surprised to find out it was Teddy Roosevelt who said 
these words: ``People don't care how much you know until they 
know how much you care.'' That is not a thing you expect of 
Teddy Roosevelt, the Rough Rider. He was also a great 
environmentalist. People don't care how much you know until 
they know how much you care, which sort of speaks to the 
community involvement piece of all of this.
    In closing, I want to again thank each of you for taking 
time to prepare for today, to present your testimony, and to 
also respond to our questions and give us some good advice as 
we go forward, looking for the bipartisan solution I think that 
we all want.
    We appreciate your thoughtful discussion of opportunities 
to improve the Federal environmental review and permitting 
process in a way that is important to our transition to a clean 
energy economy, as well as your identification of safeguards 
that must not be compromised.
    As I said in my opening statement, it is essential that we 
address the climate crisis by rapidly transitioning to a clean 
energy economy. That means we must build clean energy projects 
and infrastructure far more swiftly than we have been doing to 
date.
    We must also accomplish this while ensuring that 
historically disadvantaged and underserved communities have a 
real voice in these decisions. Your testimony today provides us 
with valuable guidance as we move forward in this legislative 
process.
    Before we adjourn, a little bit of housekeeping. Senators 
will be allowed to submit questions for the record through the 
close of business on Wednesday, May 31st of this year. We will 
compile those questions, send them to each of you, and ask that 
you reply to them by Wednesday, June 14th, 2023.
    I mentioned earlier, Senator Capito and I are both natives 
of West Virginia, so is Joe Manchin. A bunch of our neighbors 
when I was a little boy, my sister and I were little kids, a 
bunch of our neighbors worked in coal mines. My dad came out of 
Shady Springs High School at the age of 15 or 16, worked in a 
coal mine for a while, decided he didn't want to do that, and 
ended up going off to fight in a war and come home.
    There are a lot of folks in West Virginia, and a bunch of 
other States, that are fearful of what we are doing. They are 
fearful because they are afraid they are not going to have 
jobs, or they are not going to have good jobs. I always like to 
put myself in other people's shoes, Golden Rule, treat other 
people the way they want to be treated, and make sure the 
people who might be displaced because we are going away from 
fossil fuels to clean energy.
    We can't ignore the concerns of those people. We have to 
take them seriously and treat them the way we want to be 
treated. I know Senator Capito feels that very deeply, as I 
think all of us do.
    We need to continue to remind folks that we are not just 
going to walk away and say, well, to hell with you, we are just 
going to turn the page and generate all of our electricity from 
wind and solar and so forth. We have got to make sure the 
people who are disadvantaged and may be suffering because of 
that transition, that we are going to help them too. We are 
going to help them too. I think we have a moral obligation to 
do that.
    With that, I think it is a wrap. We thank you again very, 
very much. We are adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:26 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]