[Senate Hearing 118-703]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-703
OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE PROJECT REVIEWS
FOR A CLEANER AND STRONGER ECONOMY
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 26, 2023
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
61-391 WASHINGTON : 2025
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
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Page
APRIL 26, 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....................................................... 4
WITNESSES
Goldfuss, Christy, Chief Policy Impact Officer, Natural Resources
Defense Council................................................ 7
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Responses to additional questions from Senator Merkley....... 20
Johnson, Dana, Senior Director Of Strategy and Federal Policy, We
Act for Environmental Justice.................................. 28
Prepared statement........................................... 31
Hayes, Christina, Executive Director, Americans for a Clean
Energy Grid.................................................... 37
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Timmons, Jay, President and CEO, National Association of
Manufacturers.................................................. 64
Prepared statement........................................... 66
Responses to additional questions from Senator Merkley....... 76
Durbin, Marty, Senior Vice President of Policy, U.S. Chamber of
Commerce....................................................... 79
Prepared statement........................................... 81
Responses to additional questions from Senator Merkley....... 88
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Article from the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law........... 110
Letter to Senator Carper, Senator Capito and Senator Boozman from
the Institute of Scrap Industries, Inc......................... 207
Letter to Senator Carper, Senator Capito and Senator Boozman from
American Chemistry Council..................................... 209
Letter to Senator Carper and Senator Capito from American
Cleaning Institute............................................. 211
Letter to Senator Carper, Senator Capito and Senator Boozman
from:
American Beverage............................................ 212
Ameripen..................................................... 213
AMP Robotics................................................. 217
Letter to Senator Carper, Senator Capito, Senator Rodgers, and
Senator Pallone from several undersigned organizations who
would like to work to improve and pass the Recycling and
Composting Accountability Act (RCAA) and the Recycling
Infrastructure and Accessibility Act........................... 220
Letter to Senator Carper and Senator Capito from Consumer Brands
Association.................................................... 221
Letter to Senator Carper from:
Glass Packaging Institute.................................... 222
World Wildlife Fund.......................................... 225
Letter to Senator Carper and Senator Capito from Ball Corporation 226
Letter to Senator Carper, Senator Capito and Senator Boozman from
National Association of Manufacturers.......................... 228
Letter to Senator Carper and Senator Boozman from Novelis, Inc... 229
Article from The National Waste & Recycling Association: NWRA
Applauds Reintroduction of Bipartisan Recycling and Composting
Bills.......................................................... 230
Letter to Senator Capito from Novelis, Inc....................... 231
Letter to Senator Carper, Senator Capito and Senator Boozman from
The Paper Recycling Coalition.................................. 232
Article from Plastics Industry Association: Plastics Industry
Association Supports Bipartisan Legislation to Improve
America's Recycling Infrastructure............................. 234
Letter to Senator Carper, Senator Capito and Senator Boozman from
the Aluminum Association....................................... 236
Letter to Senator Carper and Senator Capito from Recycling
Infrastructure Now............................................. 237
Article from Sustainable Food Policy Alliance: SFPA Statement on
the Reintroduction of Bipartisan Recycling Legislation......... 239
Letter to Senator Carper from Tetra Pak.......................... 241
OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE PROJECT REVIEWS
FOR A CLEANER AND STRONGER ECONOMY
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2023
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The committee, met, pursuant to notice, at 9:57 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, Fetterman, Cramer, Lummis, Wicker,
Sullivan, Ricketts.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE
Senator Carper. Now, we are going to have a hearing. We
welcome our witnesses. I am going to tap this gavel again, just
to make it official. We call this hearing to order.
We are here. I just want to say a special welcome to
Senator Fetterman. We are delighted that you could join us, and
we are happy to see you and all of our other colleagues.
We are here to discuss an important, timely topic:
opportunities to reform the Nation's environmental review and
permitting processes in a way that supports our transition to a
clean energy economy and the good-paying jobs that come with
it. As we look for new opportunities, it is also helpful to
understand what we have already accomplished. It is actually
quite a bit.
Over the past two years, Congress and this committee in
particular have been incredibly productive. That includes
passing a once-in-a generation investment to help rebuild our
infrastructure, our roads, our highways, our bridges, our water
systems, our water sanitation systems, ports, access to the
internet, you name it. We have done a lot of stuff, and we are
very, very proud of it. I know that Senator Capito is, as well.
We have also made the largest investment ever to combat
climate change. Much of the work that we have done has been
bipartisan, I am proud to say. It was led by this committee.
Now, we need to work to implement these laws without delay.
That is our intent. Why is it important that we move without
delay? As many of our colleagues know or those that might be
tuned in, watching this or listening know, a recent report by
the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
found that our planet is currently on a path to reaching 1.5
degrees Celsius in global warming within the next decade, a
critical tipping point in our ability to address climate
change.
Fortunately, we have made significant progress in
supporting clean energy projects across our Country and
improving the permitting process without undermining bedrock
environmental protections.
In the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we made the Federal
Permitting Improvement Steering Council permanent, and we
expanded its authorities to reduce permitting timeline for
large infrastructure projects. Doing so will reduce the time
that it takes to build critical infrastructure.
In the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), we provided $1
billion to the Federal agencies tasked with completing these
reviews and permits. These additional resources will address
longstanding agency challenges and help expedite timelines.
We know that these tools will make a difference. For
example, the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council
improves efficiency through better communication, better
coordination, and dispute resolution. Importantly, it does so
without undermining or altering any statutory or regulatory
requirements.
This early coordination makes a clear difference in
timelines. Between 2010 and 2018, the average time across all
agencies for a project to complete an Environmental Impact
Statement was 4.5 years. In contrast, the average time for
projects that went through the Fixing America's Surface
Transportation Act--Title 41 (FAST-41) process was 2.5 years.
From 4.5 years to 2.5 years under the FAST-41.
There are also examples of how the National Environmental
Policy Act, NEPA, improves community outcomes. I will just use
an example from Michigan. In Michigan, the Department of Energy
was completing NEPA at a site for a potential vehicle battery
manufacturing facility. Through that process, they learned of
dioxin contamination in the soil. As a result of NEPA, the
Department of Energy incorporated mitigation controls to
minimize the exposure for workers and children at a nearby
daycare facility during construction.
The private sector has a role to play as well. We know many
American businesses are already working hand-in-hand with
communities in the U.S. For example, in my native West
Virginia, Clearway Energy Group has established a community
benefit fund that has provided roughly $180,000 in grants for
projects and programs in the communities surrounding the 23-
turbine wind farm. The company also established a project labor
agreement to ensure that construction jobs would go to the
local labor force. These steps help build support for future
projects to bring more reliability to the electric grid.
Still, I am a firm believer that if something is not
perfect, let us make it better. I have said that a billion
times. If it isn't perfect, make it better. My wife is still
looking for what should go on my tombstone. I have done a lot
of work on postal issues. I have always thought that ``return
to sender'' would be pretty good. Another one that would be
pretty good would be ``if it is not perfect, let us make it
better.'' Maybe we could do multiple choice or rotate from week
to week. We will see.
There is more that Congress can and must do to improve our
Nation's environmental review procedures and connect clean
energy infrastructure to the grid. To paraphrase my friend, a
fellow some of us know pretty well, Hal Harvey, and this is
what Hal likes to say, ``Markets are good at addressing 90
percent of our problems. It is up to those of us in government
to work on the other 10 percent.'' Thank you, Hal Harvey.
We know that one of these challenges is connecting clean
energy to the grid. A recent study by Lawrence Berkley National
Lab found that our Nation has two terawatts of renewable energy
capacity such as solar, such as wind, and including battery
storage that are waiting to connect to the grid, waiting to
connect to the grid. To put that figure in perspective, the
total capacity of all existing power plants in the United
States is currently 1.25 terawatts. That is almost double the
amount of energy capacity we have today.
Unfortunately, that same study also found that only one in
five transmission projects seeking to connect to the grid from
2000 to 2017 was operational by the end of 2022. I am going to
say that again. That same study also found that only one in
five transmission projects seeking to connect to the grid from
the year 2000 to the year 2017 was operational by the end of
2022. This report doesn't account for the clean energy
investments that are in development now as a result of the
Federal investments passed by the last Congress.
To me, I think it is clear that we are at a crossroads.
Some of you are old enough to remember Yogi Berra. He was a
very funny guy and a catcher for the New York Yankees, hall of
famer, and he said a lot of funny things. One of my favorite
Yogi Berra quotes is, ``When you come to the fork in the road,
take it.'' Thank you, Yogi Berra. When you come to the fork in
the road, take it.
It is clear to me that we are at a crossroads. We need to
find a way to bring massive amounts of clean energy onto our
grid to mitigate the climate crisis. At the same time, we must
make sure that communities have a voice in the buildout of
critical infrastructure.
I believe that this balance is what separates us from
countries like India or countries like China. As a recovering
Governor, some of us on this committee know what that is like,
I know we can build infrastructure and create economic
opportunity while also protecting the air we breathe, the water
we drink, and the communities that we call home from pollution.
If we are going to make lasting changes to the authorities
and procedures for environmental reviews and permits, the
legislation must be bipartisan. As Senator Capito has heard me
say more than she wants to remember, bipartisan solutions are
lasting solutions. As it turns out, that is true.
The legislation before us also needs support from a broad
coalition of stakeholders, from industry to environmental
groups. We have pretty good representation here today of that
population.
To me, a bipartisan permitting reform package must do three
things. I will mention them. The first one is, it must result
in lower emissions, not higher emissions, across our economy
while also maintaining the fundamental protections provided by
our Nation's bedrock environmental statutes. Second, a
bipartisan permitting proposal must support early and
meaningful community engagement in the development of projects,
especially engagement with historically disadvantaged and
underserved communities. Third, the legislation must provide
businesses, in particular, clean energy businesses with
certainty, predictability to help unlock economic growth and
job creation across our Country.
I ended up coming out of the Navy, moved to Delaware. We
got an MBA and went to work right away in the Delaware Division
of Economic Development. I worked there about six months, until
we had elections and nobody wanted to run for State treasurer,
so I ran for State treasurer at the age of 29. The six-months
or so that I spent in the Division of Economic Development, if
I learned nothing else, I learned businesses like certainty and
predictability. We are not going to put that on my tombstone.
We could probably put it on a number of tombstones around the
Country, and a lot of folks would say amen to that. That would
be the third thing that we are looking for.
With that, I look forward to hearing the perspectives of
each of our witnesses here with us today. Before we do that,
let me turn to Ranking Member Senator Capito for her opening
statement.
I just want to say how much I appreciate your willingness
and that of your staffs to work with the folks on the majority
side to get us to a good place in this legislation. It is
really important.
Thanks so much.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA
Senator Capito. Sure. Thank you, Chairman Carper. Thank all
of you for being here for today's hearing.
I do appreciate your willingness to start this conversation
in the committee, and I look forward to working on the process
in the coming months on our bipartisan solutions.
This committee has been, I think, one of the most effective
out of any in the Senate in moving legislation over the past
couple of years via regular order, and that has been a result
of our collaboration, our staff, the work of our members to
seek bipartisan solutions, and abiding by the committee
process.
I thank you for renewing that approach again, because we
know it works, so that we can make sure that the environment
and economic benefits from a functioning Federal permitting
process can be seen, and that effort kicks off today.
I also, again, want to thank the panel of witnesses. We are
eager to hear from all of you on how we can improve the
environmental review and permitting process to revitalize our
economy, reduce prices for consumers, create good-paying jobs
for all Americans, and rapidly build out the infrastructure,
energy, manufacturing, and mineral resources that we so sorely
need.
For far too long, projects of all sorts have gotten stuck
in a purgatory that is the Federal environmental review and
permitting process. If they make it through that with a permit,
they face the certain threat of lawsuits, even if those didn't
start even earlier in the process.
The problems with the process, they do not just impact
sponsors. They harm American workers and consumers with lost
jobs, higher energy prices, traffic congestion, more pollution,
and many other missed opportunities that result from the
failure to modernize infrastructure and energy systems. These
costs to the American people are sort of hidden and diffuse.
Since there is no line item on a receipt that you get that
you can easily see or quantify them, that has allowed us to
become a bit complacent, I believe, but make no mistake, these
regulatory obstacles are kind of a tax on American prosperity
and hamper the environmental and economic progress we want to
see pass on to future generations.
The goal of this hearing is to better understand those
costs, identify some of the greatest pressure points and
obstacles in the process, and hear ideas on how to address them
in understandable terms from the folks that have to navigate
all of this.
It is our role as elected officials to take this feedback
and explain to our fellow Americans what we are actually doing,
what the stakes are, and why improving this process goes hand
in hand with ensuring environmental protection and economic
growth.
In my home State of West Virginia alone, there are multiple
real-world examples of how our broken environmental review and
permitting process is holding up critical projects across
multiple sectors important to West Virginians, but also to our
national economy. In our transportation sector, Corridor H, in
our manufacturing sector, Nucor, and in our energy sector,
Mountain Valley Pipeline.
This is not only a West Virginia story that we are going to
hear today. Projects across the Country of National
significance are also stuck in the regulatory and legal no-
woman's land.
Job-creating projects continue to be bogged down by red
tape, judicial review holdups, starts and stops that cause
delay, delay, delay, and sometimes total abandonment of the
projects. Every State has stories like these in urban as well
as rural areas.
We will not be able to onshore the industries critical to
our international competitiveness and national security without
getting this right. A generational investment in transportation
infrastructure that we worked so hard on in this committee on
the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is running up
against the wall of our Nation's permitting issues, delaying
project delivery and letting inflation eat away at the funding
that we provided.
Where do we start, and how do we fix this broken system? I
believe we need permitting reform that benefits all projects,
not just a small subset of projects that are politically
favorable to one group or another. We need enforceable
timelines with clear time limits and predictable schedules for
environmental reviews and consequences when agencies fail to
act in a timely fashion. We need to process and decide legal
challenges to projects expeditiously instead of continuing to
drown in endless litigation.
To make the substantive changes I am describing, we must
actually amend the statutes in our jurisdiction, including the
Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and NEPA. Window-dressing
the existing failed system, if all we do is window-dress the
failed system, it is not an option. We are not getting
anywhere. Unless Congress and President Biden work together to
make these substantive reforms, the impact of the IIJA, the
Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS)
Act, and other Federal investments will be severely reduced
while projects await approvals.
I have said before, and I will say it again, I believe we
get the best solutions and the needed reforms by going through
regular order in a bipartisan committee process, like we see
today. At the end of an honest negotiation, neither side will
get exactly what it wants, and we all know that.
Chairman Carper, you and I have found ways to find common
ground and report out of the committee. We just did it today in
our recycling bills. Meaningful legislation and other
challenging policy areas, we have done this before, and I am
confident that we can make it happen here.
As you like to say, here is one of your sayings, I have
been here long enough to get a couple of your sayings, you and
I are workhorses; we are not show horses. The American people
will get a lot in return for decades to come and be saved from
the hidden tax of red tape and bureaucracy if we on this
committee can work together, as we have before, on real,
implementable reforms.
That is what I intend to do in working with you and our
colleagues on both sides. I look forward to kicking off these
conversations today.
Thank you.
Senator Carper. I like that. Workhorses, not show horses.
The idea of a no-woman's land, that would be a pretty bleak
place to live. I do not know if I would want to go there. Thank
you for your opening statement.
Now, we are going to turn to our witnesses. My staff was
kind enough to give me a script, if you will, to introduce you.
It starts off with, we will now turn to our esteemed panel,
esteemed panel. Then they had some internal discussion. They
said, instead of saying esteemed, how about brilliant? We went
back and forth on that. Finally, we decided we would use
legendary.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. Anyway, we are delighted that you are all
here with us today. We are grateful for your willingness to
join us to discuss a very important topic. This is really big
stuff. We worked on Kigali, with the Montreal protocol to sort
of set the example and show how we can work as a business
community, environmental community and do really good things
and create a lot of jobs. I think we have the opportunity to do
that here as well.
In a few minutes, we are going to hear from you in this
order: leadoff hitter, the baseball season, leadoff hitter is
Christy Goldfuss. She is Chief Policy Impact Officer of the
Natural Resources Defense Council, affectionately known as
NRDC.
Second, we are going to hear from Dana Johnson, Dana, good
morning, Senior Director of Strategy and Federal Policy at WE
ACT for Environmental Justice.
Third, we are going to hear from Christina Hayes, Executive
Director of Americans for a Clean Energy Grid.
Next, we are going to hear from Jay Timmons, Jay, good
morning, President and CEO of the National Association of
Manufacturers.
Last but not least, he introduced me, actually, he
introduced Senator Capito and I think Senator Manchin to a
National U.S. Chamber of Commerce event a week or two ago.
Thanks for that great introduction. I am afraid I do not have
the ability to give one quite as uplifting as the one you gave
me, but just know that we are delighted that you are here. We
welcome you warmly to testify before this committee.
We are going to begin our witness testimony today with Ms.
Goldfuss. Please proceed with your statement when you are
ready. Thank you. Go right ahead.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTY GOLDFUSS, CHIEF POLICY IMPACT OFFICER,
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
Ms. Goldfuss. Good morning. Legendary, that is a pretty
high bar, so I am making no promises. Thank you, Chairman
Carper, and thank you, Ranking Member Capito, for the
opportunity to testify today.
My name is Christy Goldfuss. I am the Chief Policy Impact
Officer for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
NRDC is a nonprofit organization of scientists, lawyers,
and environmental experts dedicated to protecting public health
and the environment. Previously, I served as the Managing
Director at the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and as
Senior Vice President for Energy and Environment Policy at the
Center for American Progress.
I would like to thank the members of this committee for
your leadership is passing the IRA, which is providing
unprecedented investments in U.S. energy systems and is our
strongest tool for halting climate crisis and creating a path
to a clean energy future that benefits everyone.
Any attempt to roll back IRA would be devastating to the
clean energy transition that is already providing hundreds of
thousands of good-paying jobs as well as important climate and
health benefits to millions of Americans.
To deliver on the promise of IRA, we need to build clean
energy projects at much greater speed and scale. By 2035, the
U.S. needs to build over 500 gigawatts of renewable electricity
and storage, and we need to double the rate of buildout of the
U.S. electric transmission system.
To unluck this renewable revolution, the U.S. must shift
the value proposition around clean energy deployment and
transmission and move to a model that delivers more benefits
directly to the communities that host this clean energy
infrastructure while providing the benefits of clean energy to
everyone. This shift will lead to less opposition and therefore
faster timelines for getting clean energy projects and
transmissions deployed at scale.
I want to briefly highlight NRDC's recommendations covering
four major topics: streamlining clean energy permitting,
improving the process for permitting and siting large,
interState transmission lines, utilizing smart-from-the-start
planning, and addressing local barriers to clean energy
projects.
I would like to say that broad claims that the permitting
process, the whole process, is broken and that NEPA is the
problem are not borne out by the facts. Even oil and gas
industry experts this week were quoted, saying they fear that
there was a permitting myopia with too much attention on NEPA
in particular.
That said, there are ways of improving, making the system
better, if not perfect. Agencies should be encouraged to make
greater use of programmatic Environmental Impact Statements
(EISs) to move toward a design one-build many model that
decouples broad swaths of the environmental review process from
individual project timelines, and CEQ should continue efforts
centered on sector-specific engagement to identify targeted
efficiency gains for agencies that are part of the clean energy
permitting process.
Let me shift to transmission, because this is really a key
part of the problem. Lack of transmission is a critical barrier
to accelerating renewable energy buildout. Currently, although
transmission planning happens under Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission (FERC) regulation, the permitting for all
transmission lines happens at the State and the local level,
meaning that every State, effectively, has veto power over
transmission lines that pass through their jurisdiction.
FERC does have backstop authority to site lines within
corridors of national interest, which DOE must designate. FERC
and DOE should move quickly under this strengthened authority
to designate new national interest corridors.
Even when large transmission projects are planned,
allocating the costs of such projects is challenging. If FERC
does not act to broadly allocate these costs, Congress should
pass legislation requiring FERC to adopt cost allocation rules
that holistically reflect the multiple benefits of
transmission.
Next, I want to stress the importance of early planning.
Utilizing smart-from-the-start planning means planning and
siting development in ways that minimizes potential impacts and
conflict before project-by-project permitting even begins. It
includes applying the science, guidance, and best practices to
address both environmental and community concerns.
The Federal Government should be encouraged to partner with
State agencies to develop and share the best available data,
best management practices, mitigation options, and guidance.
Federal agencies also should ensure that funds from IRA
earmarked for planning are implemented in a way that helps
States and localities in their planning and permitting
processes.
Finally, some of the strongest opposition that we are
seeing and barriers to developing large-scale wind and solar
and transmission lines at speed and scale originate at the
community level. States should be encouraged to adopt siting
and permitting laws that will ensure an efficient process for
approving projects while also providing thorough environmental
review and ensuring community engagement and benefits to those
host communities. We can do it all.
IRA creates a tremendous opportunity to chart a path to a
clean energy future that benefits everyone. By implementing
these recommendations, we can make this clean energy future a
reality.
Thank you for inviting me to testify, and I look forward to
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Goldfuss follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Thank you for your testimony.
Now, we are going to turn to Dana Johnson for your
testimony. Ms. Johnson, welcome. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF DANA JOHNSON, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY AND
FEDERAL POLICY, WE ACT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Ms. Johnson. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Carper, thank you
Ranking Member Capito, and committee members for the
opportunity to contribute to this important conversation.
WE ACT for Environmental Justice (EJ) is a Northern
Manhattan-based member organization whose mission is to build
healthy communities. We do this by ensuring that people living
in a community of color or an area of low-income lead in
creating sound and fair environmental health protection
policies and practices at the city, State, and Federal level.
Our Federal Policy Office, where I serve, also serves as
the administrative anchor for the Environmental Justice
Leadership Forum, which is a network of about 50 EJ
organizations and advocates across the Country. They represent
22 States or so that span the political spectrum. The goal
really is to ensure that as a collective, we advance policies
that ensure the protection and promotion of communities of
color and low-income areas across the U.S.
I am going to go on a little bit of a personal note here. I
have been with WE ACT for Environmental Justice for four years.
And during that time, I feel like I have stood with EJ Forum
members and other advocates across this Country in discussing,
defending, and calling for the strengthening of the permitting
process and NEPA, specifically, in this Country.
In my conversations, I repeatedly hear people describe NEPA
as the people's law, because they feel like it gives them a say
in what happens where they live, where they work, where they
play, where they pray. They say that NEPA's requirement that
they be considered and consulted in projects is one of the ways
that we demonstrate that we are a democracy.
NEPA levels the playing field and, in our opinion, efforts
to, quite frankly, what feels like gut or roll back this
bedrock law aren't held as improvements for people who have
been adversely impacted by our land use, our urban, our energy
planning decisions across the Nation.
Our communities are calling for a moment of truth. We are
calling for transparency, and we are also calling for
accountability. Here is what we seek. First, as Christy noted,
delays related to Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and
litigation have been overstated. Far fewer NEPA-impacted
projects go through an EIA, and the median times for those
projects that do go through the full review are shorter than
what we hear cited.
The Council on Environmental Quality estimates that
projects that require an EIA, the most intensive review
process, account for less than one percent of all NEPA review
projects. Only five percent of required environmental
assessments, which is a much less strenuous or rigorous
process, and then 95 percent of NEPA projects are categorically
excused from environmental reviews entirely.
Second, when it comes to bringing utility-scale renewable
projects, and in this instance, I am referring to solar online,
transmission connectivity is the cause of the delay and not
NEPA. Once solar fields or wind farms are built, they must be
able to connect to the grid of large-scale transmission lines
in order to deliver that renewable energy to households.
The process of that connection causes significant delays
and has nothing to do with a burdensome public participation or
environmental review process. It is indicative of our need to
invest in our transmission system, which we believe the
Inflation Reduction Act as well as the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law gives us the opportunity to do. It also
indicates that we need to manage the politics of who owns those
transmission lines and who grants access to them.
Finally, a global assessment of the reasons why large-scale
projects are delayed was performed, I believe, in 2020. The top
five reasons were poor project management, poor contracting
approaching, contractors' financial issues, delayed approvals,
delayed payments, clients' financial issues, challenges with
the actual design of a project. If we note, early, transparent,
and robust public participation periods, proactively
considering alternatives for achieving a project's goals, and
consideration of cumulative impacts are not among the top
reasons that projects are delayed.
I would like to conclude my comments with three points made
at a recent positive permitting symposium that WE ACT for
Environmental Justice was a part of. Three of the
recommendations that came out of that conversation that I think
are appropriate for this one are, we really need to start
community engagement much earlier in the process.
With WE ACT, we call it the first early and ongoing
process. Advocates in that space noted that when industry come
to them, when they are able to negotiate, when we have
community meetings before a permitting process even begins, we
are able to work in partnership to solve the challenges of
bringing a project to fruition.
There was also a recommendation to undertake community
engagements with a neutral party. There was a professor at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and his colleagues
who plan to pilot what they call a renewable energy facility
siting clinic that will give people a space where they aren't
concerned about intimidation or unfairness in the process. We
believe that local and State governments can be a part of that
conversation, and the Federal Government in this process can be
a convener.
Finally, I think making the comment system more user--
friendly and accessible to community members that do not have
access to computers or struggle to attend hearings, those seem
like really simple recommendations, but I do think that they
are really simple steps that we can take to address this.
Finally, people living frontline and fence-line to fossil
fuel operations want to see you take action to address our
energy needs. They want it from an economic perspective. They
want it from a health perspective and a quality-of-life
perspective.
They also want you to ask yourselves three key questions
along the way. Will any changes that get proposed to the
permitting process create an environment for producing or
expanding an energy source that will harm communities? Will it
perpetuate racially and economically disproportionate health
and environmental burdens? Will it prolong the climate crises
in communities where climate change is at the center?
If we can not say no to each of those questions, then this
isn't a process that we should advance.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
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Senator Carper. Thank you very much.
Ms. Hayes, Christina Hayes, you are recognized. Please
proceed. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTINA HAYES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICANS FOR
A CLEAN ENERGY GRID
Ms. Hayes. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Carper,
Ranking Member Capito, and members of the committee. Thank you
for today's opportunity to speak about the importance of
improving project reviews to maintain a reliable grid and
ensure a sustainable, high-growth economy for all Americans.
I represent Americans for a Clean Energy Grid (ACEG), a
nonprofit advocacy organization focused on the need to expand
and modernize the transmission system. ACEG represents a
diverse coalition, bringing together the voices of transmission
and renewables developers of all kinds, as well as business,
labor, consumer, and environmental groups.
Today, I want to tell the story of two transmission lines,
each spanning several hundred miles, capable of interconnecting
between two and four gigawatts of power. That is about the
amount for about 750,000 homes, the size of about two
Delawares, or a little bit more than West Virginia.
Both lines require both Federal and State permitting, as
they cross Federal, State, and private land. Both require an
Environmental Impact Statement.
One line takes 15 years to permit. It was first submitted
for Federal permitting in 2007, and it hopes to be energized in
a few more years. The other takes much less time. All Federal
and State approvals will be completed in approximately five
years.
The difference is in agency personnel, State laws, and how
Federal laws are implemented. You can just never tell when you
begin the transmission siting and permitting process which set
of circumstances you will run into.
Now, compare that to the time it takes to permit high-
capacity transmission in other countries around the world. A
recent study showed that it takes between two and four years in
China, and three and six years in India.
It should take time to site and permit high-capacity,
regionally significant transmission. They will last for
decades, 50 years or more, and we should take the time to
ensure that our infrastructure is well-thought out, reflects a
full understanding of the environmental and community impacts,
and incorporates appropriate stakeholder input and engagement,
but building in the United States has slowed to a near
standstill.
According to a recent report, the United States dropped
from installing an average of 1,700 new high-voltage
transmission miles per year in the first half of the 2010's to
less than 700 miles per year in the second half of the decade.
We need more transmission to withstand the impacts of extreme
weather, to reduce the economic impacts of big storms, and to
keep the lights and the heat on for American families.
Legacy transmission lines kept the lights on during recent
winter storms Uri and Elliott, but we need more such lines,
especially as we electrify more and more of our economy. Our
TVs, our thermostats, our computers, our phones: electricity is
critical for nearly every aspect of modern life. Moreover, we
need to more than double our current rate of construction to
have a chance at hitting our Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction
goals, not to mention to realize the promise of a domestically
powered clean energy future.
To achieve these benefits, Congress should take action to
address siting and permitting reform. Consistency and certainty
in siting and permitting laws throughout the development of a
project is needed to encourage the private sector to move
forward with these significant investments.
Specifically, high capacity, regionally significant
transmission should go through a unified Federal siting and
permitting authority, just as other major energy infrastructure
does. A bright line threshold for unified Federal siting and
permitting authority should be clearly established, which, when
included a single point of contact for environmental review,
will provide for a comprehensive and legally durable siting and
permitting process.
Firm deadlines should be established from beginning to end.
If a transmission line is approved, the notice to proceed
should be issued no more than five years after the application
process has begun.
Finally, any siting and permitting process must include
early meaningful engagement with affected customers and
communities before the application and throughout the pre-
filing process. Additionally, developers should consider
support through community benefit agreements and/or revenue
sharing. Mitigation beats litigation every time.
We need to build for the future, the grid we are going to
have, not the grid that we used to have. We need it for
reliability, to access new, low-cost domestic energy resources,
and to meet customer needs. We can not do that at the current
rate of construction or with the current siting and permitting
laws and regulations.
On behalf of ACEG and our coalition, we stand ready to
assist you in putting the right policies in place to ensure
that America will have a cost-effective, reliable, modern grid
to power a clean and strong economy.
Thank you for considering my testimony. I look forward to
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hayes follows:]
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Senator Carper. Thank you for that testimony.
Now, Mr. Timmons, you are recognized. Please proceed.
Thanks for joining us.
STATEMENT OF JAY TIMMONS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, and good morning, Chairman Carper,
Ranking Member Capito, and members of the committee. Thank you
for this chance to speak with you on behalf of the 13 million
men and women who make things in America to convey the urgency
of permitting reform.
For manufacturers, permitting reform is essential for our
ability to compete in the global economy. While there is a
broad range of philosophies represented on this committee, each
member has a goal or a priority for their constituents that
would be easier to achieve if Congress acts to modernize our
permitting processes, and manufacturers share many of these
goals.
Mr. Chairman, you quoted the great Yogi Berra. Another
famous New Yorker, George Plunkitt, was a Democratic leader in
Tammany Hall. He said, ``If you see an opportunity, take it.''
I have to say, we have an incredible opportunity here to work
in a bipartisan way to get some good things done.
If we want more critical minerals for chip manufacturing,
more domestic energy development and transport, power plants,
pipelines, transmission lines, more manufacturing facilities
and jobs back home, better highways, bridges, airports,
waterways, then we need permitting reform to make it a reality
in the near future.
Then, there is the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that
everybody here has referenced, the CHIPS and Science Act, even
the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes hydrogen tax
credits, for which Chairman Carper successfully fought.
Permitting reform is the key that unlocks the full potential of
all of these laws.
What we want to do is improve standards of living here in
America while making our economy less dependent on countries
like China for our inputs, and less reliant on hostile nations,
like Russia, for our energy supply. After all, why, in the 21st
century should it take five or 10 or even 15 years just to
approve essential projects?
If Washington could streamline the process, like
manufacturers do in our businesses every single day, we could
do more for our Country. For example, a White House Council on
Environmental Quality report found that environmental impact
statements mandated under the National Environmental Policy Act
of 1969 now take, on average, as you referenced, Mr. Chairman,
four and a half years. That means, for example, more time is
spent just projecting potential environmental impacts than it
takes to actually construct and operate a clean hydrogen power
generation facility.
One of our member companies reported that permits from the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were delayed a year due to the
failure of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to complete a
required informal consultation under the Endangered Species
Act. For an entire year, potential workers sat on the
sidelines. A community lost out on economic opportunity waiting
on informal paperwork.
We can and we should still set high standards for
ourselves. Let us just modernize the process, fewer delays,
fewer needless lawsuits.
As detailed in my written testimony, manufacturers have a
few priorities. First, we want to see consolidated processes
with enforceable deadlines for the siting of new energy
projects, including hydrogen, natural gas, nuclear, and other
emerging technologies, along with their infrastructure.
Second, we want to see faster approvals for transportation
infrastructure projects on which we all rely. Third, we want to
see a commitment to developing our resources to strengthen our
supply chains for critical minerals that are essential to
semiconductor manufacturing and Electric Vehicle (EV) battery
production.
Fourth, we believe the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) and other agencies should refrain from issuing new and
shifting regulations before current standards are implemented.
Finally, Congress should ensure that the Administration follows
congressional intent on recent and future statutory
streamlining efforts, such as the One Federal Decision.
We believe that all of this should be done in a technology-
neutral way. Let consumers and users and market conditions
determine what works best, and when there must be judicial
review, it should be meaningful and timely.
Manufacturers have a deep commitment to environmental
stewardship, and we do not believe that corners should be cut.
We believe in protecting our community, our neighbors, and our
environment.
Reform is about keeping up with the world around us. It is
about ensuring that this Country, a democracy rooted in free
enterprise, isn't outpaced or outflanked or overtaken by
nations that do not share our values, that do not respect the
environment, or that do not recognize the dignity of human
rights.
There is nothing that manufacturers in America can not do
for the good of our Country and the world, so long as the
government and rules that were written in the past century
aren't standing in our way.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Timmons follows:]
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Senator Carper. Not at all. Thank you very much for that
testimony.
Before I introduce Mr. Durbin, once you finish your
testimony, Mr. Durbin, we are going to turn to Senator
Fetterman to ask any questions that he might have, and then to
Senator Capito, and then I will follow in her wake.
Mr. Durbin, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF MARTY DURBIN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF POLICY,
U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
Mr. Durbin. Good morning, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member
Capito, and members of the committee. Thanks for the invitation
to be here today.
We have an historic opportunity. Congress enacted the most
significant investments in infrastructure in a generation.
Combined, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and
Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act could spur public
and private investments from nearly $2 trillion to build the
infrastructure and the economy of the future.
However, we believe our permitting process is broken and
creating unnecessary obstacles. To be clear, environmental
reviews and meaningful community input are essential, but we
have to find ways to accelerate the process.
While our environmental statutes provide critical
protections that have contributed to better stewardship over
the decades, over time, their interpretation and implementation
have added complexity in ways that empower project opponents to
delay action through the regulatory process and the courts.
Simply put, it should not take longer to get a decision
about a permit, which we have heard, on average, is more than
four years, than it does to actually construct a project.
We need Congress to act to ensure our Nation's global
competitiveness, strengthen our economic and energy security,
and meet the challenge of climate change.
The good news is that we have seen bipartisan support for
fixing the problems. To build on that momentum and spur quick
action by Congress, the Chamber and nearly 350 partners from
across the economy and nearly every corner of the Nation
launched the Permit America to Build Campaign. I want to thank
Chairman Carper and Senator Capito for joining us at our launch
last week.
With such a broad group of industries, labor unions, and
others, we would not agree on every issue, but we are committed
to working with Congress to enact necessary reforms this year.
As a starting point, we agree on four principles:
predictability, efficiency, transparency, and stakeholder
input.
This is an issue that affects many of our Nation's
infrastructure priorities. The clean energy transition, a
central part of the global climate strategy, cannot be achieved
when it takes so long to build projects like offshore wind,
solar farms, or transmission lines.
To reach net zero emissions by 2050, a million miles of new
transmission lines may be needed. Does anyone believe that is
possible with our current permitting process?
Natural gas is the backbone of a clean energy economy,
providing standby support for intermittent generation and
cleaner baseload generation; but the inability to site
interState pipelines because opponents are using the permitting
process to stop them is preventing affordable and reliable
supplies of natural gas from getting to those who need it, such
as in New England.
Turning to critical minerals, demand is at an all-time
high. They are used in everything from cell phone batteries to
wind turbines, but some 80 percent of those materials are
produced, refined, and processed in China. While it take an
average of seven to 10 years to receive a mining permit in the
U.S., in Canada and Australia, it takes about two.
The CHIPS and Science Act is investing more than $50
billion to strengthen America's semiconductor industry to help
ensure our national security and our global competitiveness;
but here too, permitting requirements can present significant
challenges to many of those projects.
On broadband, closing the digital divide is going to drive
e-commerce, improve access to critical services, and sustain
small businesses uncertainty and delays in the permitting
process at all levels of government will increase the cost and
complexity of that deployment.
As we have heard, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is
providing unprecedented opportunity to modernize our Nation's
transportation infrastructure, but States and other recipients
of those dollars are struggling to use them since the lengthy
permitting process can add years and uncertainty. With the
inflation, inflation literally means that time is money. The
longer it takes for shovels to hit the dirt, the less we are
going to be able to build.
On water infrastructure, $13 billion has been allocated
through recent laws to increase drought resilience and expand
access to clean water for families, especially in the American
West, however, water infrastructure projects take on average
six years to receive a permit.
We know that forging consensus is not going to be easy, but
we can not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. After
decades of seeing the process get longer, more complex, and
less transparent, we must take whatever steps we can now to
create a modern, agile, and efficient permitting process. Every
day that goes by imposes an opportunity cost on all of us.
We are ready and willing to work with Congress to unleash
both public investments and the power of private sector
capital. This is one of the most important issues facing our
Nation, and if we do not solve it, we will not be able to grow
our economy and take full advantage of the opportunities that
we have in front of us. Thank you again for the opportunity to
be here. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Durbin follows:]
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Senator Carper. Exactly five minutes. That was perfect.
Mr. Durbin. Stuck the landing.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. Thanks so much, Mr. Durbin.
We are going to move on to questions. We are going to turn
first to Senator Fetterman, and then after he has asked his
questions, Senator Capito, and then I will follow her. Thank
you. Senator Fetterman, welcome. You are recognized.
Senator Fetterman. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Goldfuss, you have discussed programmatic environmental
impact statements, which could help advance clean energy
projects in areas that are ideal for future wind, solar, and
transmission projects. How can you incorporate proactive
community engagement into programmatic review?
Ms. Goldfuss. Great question, thank you, Senator.
The beauty of the programmatic review process is it allows
you to pick an area that you want to develop in larger than
just the project size. If you identify that area at the right
level, then you are able to engage the community around there,
and you are also able to look at the broader environmental
conditions, whether it is related to wildlife, water, or other
issues.
You can assess that on the front end, and then you can tier
off of that larger programmatic review for specific projects.
That allows you to go through that process not detailed at each
project level, but for that broader area, just one time.
Senator Fetterman. Further, another question with you,
Pennsylvania has been discussing its own permitting capacity
right now. The States play a critical role here, but many have
outdated processes and limited capacity. Do you agree with
that?
Ms. Goldfuss. Absolutely.
Senator Fetterman. How do you believe that the Federal
Government should help States improve their permitting
processes in a way that aligns with Federal goals?
Ms. Goldfuss. We have seen some promising partnership in
the State of Nevada in particular, where some of the resources
that have been made available through the Inflation Reduction
Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law can be given to the
States for their permitting process.
If the Federal Government is going to do that, it should be
conditioned on the basic values that we have laid out here,
making sure that there are environmental considerations, that
community engagement is done up front, but those resources can
be transferred to the States for their particular permitting
process.
Senator Fetterman. So you are saying changing the process
and shortening it significantly, that would be transformative
not for just the economy, but also the energy.
Ms. Goldfuss. Absolutely, and the States have their own
laws that they need to work through, as well. If they have the
capacity, it allows them to do it faster.
Senator Carper. Senator Fetterman, thanks for joining us,
and for those questions.
Senator Capito, you are recognized, and I will follow you.
Senator Capito. Thank you. Thank you all very much.
I am going to start with Mr. Durbin and Mr. Timmons. I
think, when we sit here and talk, we talk about NEPA, if
somebody is actually watching, which I hope they are, they have
no idea what that really is.
If you could frame it, Mr. Timmons, we will start with you.
When delays and inefficiency occur, and I think we pretty much
generally all agree that delays and inefficiencies are in the
system and are occurring, and maybe there is some question
about that, but I certainly have none.
How does this ultimately impact an American worker and a
consumer? The longer it takes to build, it gets more expensive
for your energy. The longer it takes to build, your pipeliners
aren't working, or your folks are not siting windmills. How
does this affect your workers and consumers, to both of you?
Mr. Timmons, we will start with you.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you for that question, Senator. Seventy-
four percent of our members, we do a survey each quarter for
our members, 74 percent said that permitting reform would be
helpful to their company, and 74 percent cited that as a
problem in terms of slowing down projects.
As you just mentioned, it does have an impact. It has an
impact on communities; it has an impact on businesses; it has
an impact on workers. The longer it takes for an investment to
be made, the longer it takes to put a shovel in the ground, the
more delay there is for the great jobs, jobs that pay more than
any other sector of the economy to be realized.
I have a couple of examples here that might be of interest.
One of our members was forced to either spend $400 million more
to meet some standards in a locality that was not in an
attainment area, or move their facility. The move added $100
million to the project and caused a six-month delay. Those are
jobs, obviously, that could not be realized during that time
period.
One member ended up responding to over 600 requests for
information with over 40,000 pages during the environmental
impact statement process, and it resulted in a document being
over 4,000 pages long. That was obviously a long time period,
as well.
We have done a lot of things in a bipartisan way, or even a
partisan way, several Administrations, as long as I have been
at the NAM, the Bush administration, the Obama administration,
the Trump Administration, and certainly the Biden
Administration, to encourage investment and job creation in the
United States. We have had record investment in manufacturing
facilities in the United States in the last six years, record
job creation, record wage growth.
That can not go on forever. The permitting processes that
exist today, it simply slows down the process, stops jobs from
being created, and loses opportunities for communities.
Senator Capito. Thank you.
Mr. Durbin?
Mr. Durbin. Thank you, Senator.
I would agree with everything that Mr. Timmons just said.
The one point I would add to that is the impact of projects
that end up not getting investments in the first place. When
you know that it is going to take seven years to get a permit
decision on a highway, or more than four years for various
projects, and you see the examples of projects that get hung up
so much, or watching investments sitting on the sidelines here,
or even communities that are deciding, well, we do not want to
go through the Federal process, because we might get hung up in
that, as well.
Again, I agree that the delays are obviously delaying the
benefits of each of the projects to the community, to the
consumer, to the Nation as a whole. We want to make sure that
we put a process in place that encourages the types of
investment that we need from the private sector into these
projects.
Senator Capito. Thank you.
I think we have heard a lot of common themes: consistency,
persistence, predictability, as large global concepts. Also,
not shortcutting the environmental review is very important,
but also the community involvement piece. I see those as very
consistent through all the testimony.
I also heard a lot about energy transitions and how
important that is. Again, Mr. Durbin, I will ask you first, do
you believe this energy transition can occur if we do not do
some of these reforms?
Mr. Durbin. The quick answer is no. I do not think we are
going to be able to achieve the ambitious objectives that we
put out. I think they are common objectives. We have all agreed
that these are things we want to achieve. Let's ensure and
strengthen our energy security here at home, allow ourselves to
provide to allies around the world, while accelerating a
transition to a cleaner energy.
You can not get there if we can not get the projects in the
ground, the technology, the transmission lines, all of that. We
can not get to those if we do not have a permit process that
facilitates a faster process.
Senator Capito. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I want to do a
round two, but I will stop here and let everybody else go.
Senator Carper. Thanks so much.
I am going to address my first question to Ms. Johnson, Ms.
Goldfuss, and Ms. Hayes. Ms. Johnson, Ms. Goldfuss, and Ms.
Hayes, all three of you mentioned the importance of early
engagement with the communities. I could not agree more.
My staff would tell you that two of my favorite words are
``for example.'' With that in mind, a question, if I could, of
Ms. Johnson and Ms. Hayes.
Would each of you briefly provide us with an example of
when early engagement with communities helped to mitigate
community concerns and improve outcomes while also avoiding
delays or challenges later in the review process? How can the
Federal Government support that early engagement?
Ms. Johnson, would you go first?
Ms. Johnson. Sure, thank you.
I think I want to start by addressing some of what we have
heard in the room today by my esteemed or legendary co-
witnesses on the panel.
When we talk about permit reform, and even today in this
space, I feel like what is missing from the conversation is
equity and justice. In many spaces, we aren't starting from the
ground up. In most parts of the Country, what we are proposing
to build in communities that face historic marginalization----
Senator Carper. Again, let me just note, I am looking for
an example, but go ahead.
Ms. Johnson. OK. I can give you an example in Georgia, we
do know of one in the port of Savannah, where there was a plan
to build a large energy storage facility there. The local
government, where industry, and community worked together early
to envision what that project would look like, to outline
community benefits, which, for that community, were economic in
nature, so looking for jobs and other opportunities.
Because of first and early engagement with frontline
groups, that project was able to be scoped out, planned, and
permitted in a way that moved forward easily and in a way that
communities embraced.
Senator Carper. Thank you for that example.
I am going to ask, if I could, Ms. Hayes for an example as
well, for when early engagement with communities helped
mitigate community concerns and improve outcomes. Go ahead.
Ms. Hayes. Thank you for the question, Chairman Carper. I
can start with, we issued a report in February where we talked
to a number of developers who were concerned about putting
their names on examples. So I have very vague examples, if that
is OK. Transmission frequently, especially, high capacity,
regionally significant transmission is frequently sited in
rural areas, and so it might be a slightly different dynamic
than what Ms. Johnson was discussing, but two examples.
One was siting energy infrastructure, and it was going to
go directly through a peach orchard. The landowners had to
spend two years advocating for changes to the siting to avoid
litigation on the back end before they were able to move the
line to avoid very meaningful production for that landowner.
Another example is, the Morongo Tribe has a transmission
line from Southern California Edisonsited through it. Southern
California Edison was looking to upgrade the line. A creative
equity financing arrangement was put together and approved by
the FERC to allow the tribe to see some community benefits from
the infrastructure that is being built through their lands.
Senator Carper. Thank you. I am going to ask you to speak
briefly on this one, but what do you see as the primary sources
of delay for high voltage transmission, Ms. Hayes, high voltage
transmission line projects, and what are the main things we can
do to help overcome these delays? Just briefly, please.
Ms. Hayes. Obstacles to high voltage transmission fall into
three categories: paying, planning, and permitting. Permitting
is what we are here to discuss today, certainly planning lies
at FERC, and paying has a variety of solutions that certainly,
we can get into later.
Permitting, having a clear threshold for Federal
jurisdiction for regionally significant transmission is
critical. I think that was supported by testimony submitted by
Ms. Goldfuss as well, and having that early engagement. Again,
as you noted, all of the witnesses supported that principle, as
well.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
With that, I am going to turn to Senator Cramer. I think he
will be succeeded by Senator Cardin for questions. Senator
Cramer, welcome.
Senator Cramer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Capito, and all of our guests.
Since we are on the topic, Ms. Hayes, and thanks for
introducing it, in order to do some of the things, setting
aside national significance for a moment, when we were working
in a bipartisan fashion late last Congress, we were working on
some things specific to transmission, obviously.
Of course, H.R. 1 does not address transmission. Somebody
is going to have to. One of the challenges as a former
regulator myself at the State level, one of the challenges, of
course, is how much power to give FERC in planning or paying.
Whatever it would be, sort of socializing the entire grid
at the FERC level and increasing FERC's role in it all,
including maybe DOE and national significance, automatically
would trigger NEPA, would it not? If it did trigger NEPA, do
not we have to have some changes in the underlying NEPA laws,
ESA and the other Federal laws, if we are going to accomplish
what several want to accomplish with regard to transmission, as
well as some of the other things we are talking about?
Ms. Hayes. Thank you for the question. You are right. Any
consolidation of jurisdiction over high-capacity lines at the
Federal level would need to be coupled with streamlining the
permitting and siting process, as you noted. Right now, such
lines can go through multiple Federal agencies, as well as
multiple State agencies and local governments, as well. For
these larger lines that have larger benefits to the region,
that should also be coupled with the idea that it should take
five years.
We can certainly talk about each of the components of the
NEPA process or other environmental reviews. So often, we end
up playing whack-a-mole. So instead, if we look at it from
beginning to end to get five years for that notice to proceed,
which is what is needed before we can start turning dirt and
putting steel in the ground, that would be very helpful to get
these much-needed facilities installed.
Senator Cramer. I hesitate to ask, but I am going to
anyway, because of my curiosity. I am just interested in
anybody that can help us find some ground where we acknowledge
all of the things you have just said while at the same time
paying close attention to the important of a State's rights.
As a State regulator, I loved siting transmission lines up
to the Minnesota border, but I resented it when Minnesota sited
them to the North Dakota border and then said, take it from
here. Is there some sort of balance that is doable that
recognizes both the goal, but also, and on the pay front, for
sure. Socializing the costs across a broader area than uses the
electrons, give me your genius and find us some common ground.
Ms. Hayes. Legendary genius. That is a lot of pressure.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Hayes. By setting a high threshold----
Senator Carper. I think I have created a monster here.
Senator Cramer. You might have.
Ms. Hayes. By setting a high capacity for these lines,
345KV, 750 megawatts, that is only about 25 percent of the
transmission. Once you layer on having it cross two States or
150 miles, now you are down to something much less than that. I
have seen numbers around 10 percent at the transmission.
There still would be significant State jurisdiction over
lines being sited. It is just these lines that have that
greater national interest. Of course, States' input in terms of
how things get sited in a State is very valuable, but it is
really important to make sure that the broader regional
interest is considered.
The Midwest has done a terrific job of partnering with its
neighbors, each Midwest State has done a great job of
partnering with its neighbors to site transmission. We need to
spread that around the Country.
Senator Cramer. Yes. Common sense is less common in other
places. I have noticed that.
Thank you for that. We are going to work hard on it.
Mr. Timmons, obviously, siting for manufacturers is
important for the manufacturers themselves, but obviously the
cost of energy, and everything we are talking about is costly,
adds to the cost of manufacturing, as well as other businesses,
obviously. Maybe you could comment just a little bit in my
remaining seconds here on how important the certainty of cost
and how important the role of energy and the cost of energy as
well as the availability of energy is to our manufacturing
renaissance if we are going to continue it?
Mr. Timmons. Sure. So, the cost of energy is a major input
in addition to labor and other factors. The more plentiful, and
we would like to see the development of all forms of energy to
drive down the cost of doing business here in the United
States. It is a pretty simple equation, quite frankly, Senator.
If we are able to be competitive, think in terms of tax, think
in terms of regulation, think in terms of infrastructure, which
this committee and Congress has addressed. If we are able to
drive down those costs, we can be competitive, and we can
produce anything in this Country.
I think during the pandemic, we saw very clearly that we
needed to make more products here in the United States, and we
needed to make sure that the next dollar invested was here, and
the only way to do that is to make sure that we can control our
costs. Permitting reform will help do that.
Senator Cramer. Thank you.
Senator Carper. You are welcome.
Senator Cardin, you are next, please.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank all
of our witnesses.
What I really enjoy about this committee is that we really
try to find the right balance, and I applaud our leaders in
taking sensitive subjects and trying to find the sweet spot. I
think this is one of the areas that is going to be a challenge
for us, but we have to work together. Permitting reform, we all
want to see timely decisions made.
I am going to raise two areas of concern that we do not cut
the timing, that would be detrimental to environmental justice
or to our environmental commitments. Mr. Chairman, you asked
for an example, so I want to start with Ms. Johnson with an
example in Baltimore.
In the 1970's, there was a desire to connect from our west
I-70 to our east I-95 with a highway going through Baltimore.
Before the African American minority community could object to
it, the highway was built, dividing a community and destroying
stable Black neighborhoods. It was stopped by a White
community, with its political impact. The highway ultimately
went to nowhere.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, I am proud that with our
Reconnecting Communities, that this community is going to get a
grant. We are going to try to reconnect the community. My point
is this: we can not sacrifice the desire for time that denies
communities the opportunity to have input to stop these types
of wrong decisions from being made.
Ms. Johnson, tell me how we can effectively have community
input if we try to rush a process that denies particularly the
underserved communities from having that opportunity?
Ms. Johnson. Thank you, I appreciate the question.
I do not think that we can have meaningful community input
if we prioritize speed over quality. I think that if we
frontload the process with public engagement that begins before
an EIS or an EA, an Environmental Assessment is done, before
the project is even fully baked, if we have community at the
table participating in conversations around what we ultimately
hope to achieve, I think that we can get to great results.
We have conversations and opportunities for negotiation, as
was mentioned earlier, and we have the opportunity to look for
community benefits.
We also have to consider that sometimes, the answer might
be no. In those instances, we can work together to come up with
a resolution that can be beneficial to everyone. We think,
first, early, and continued connected to community when we are
envisioning and planning out projects is important.
Senator Cardin. I just want to give a plug to our
committee. It was the leaders of our committee that included
Reconnecting Communities in the Infrastructure Bill, so thank
you for that. This community is going to get some help.
Ms. Goldfuss, I want to relay a conversation I had with
President Petro this past week of Colombia. He was telling us
about the Amazon being the sponge for greenhouse gas emissions,
and we are asking the countries of our hemisphere to preserve
the Amazon, because we know how important it is.
He raised to me the issue that the developed world has
already destroyed a lot of its resources, and now you are
asking the developing world to take a step to preserve the
global climate issues. The point is this: when you do an
environmental study, the impact on the globe might be not as
prominent of a consideration.
I was proud to represent the United States at the Sharm
el----
Sheikh Climate Summit, and I know the U.S. leadership is
going to be critically important. Tell me the tradeoff on time
on the review process on the environmental impacts such as
greenhouse gas emissions being put to decide if we do not have
adequate time to review that.
Ms. Goldfuss. I will try and be brief. The beauty of NEPA
is it allows us to have information, look before we leap, know
exactly what the impacts of our project are going to be. If we
rush that and are not aware in a changing climate of what the
impacts of a project are going to be, then we suffer the
consequences.
On the resilience side, it means we build infrastructure
that then is subject to extreme weather, and we have to rebuild
it again in a much shorter timeframe. If we are looking at
emissions reductions, then we are not taking into account if
there is an alternative that would contribute less to extreme
weather and causing more climate change.
It is about getting that information so we can plan the
best project, have the least amount of impact, engage the
community, and then have less objection in the back end, which
can slow things down.
Senator Cardin. Because of lack of time, I cannot ask my
last question on the Chesapeake Bay. I know the committee is
going to be disappointed I do not raise the Chesapeake Bay at
this hearing. I yield back.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. Senator Cardin, thanks very much for those
questions, for your brevity, and for your kind words earlier
about the work we have done on our committee with respect to
the divisions that you face in Baltimore and in other places as
well, including Wilmington, Delaware.
Next is Senator Ricketts. He will be succeeded by Senator
Sullivan.
Senator Ricketts. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
and thank you to all of our witnesses who are joining us here
today.
I am going to take it from a little bit of a different
perspective as a former Governor who actually did permitting
reform in my State and saw the actual real-world experience of
a variety of different agencies that were working on it. I can
tell you that when it doesn't go well, we see a lot of really
bad consequences.
For example, the Army Corps of Engineers took about six
years to get a permit for the Papio-Missouri Natural Resources
District to raise the levies around Offut Air Force Base. If
you are not familiar with Offut Air Force Base, that is where
strategic command is located, which controls our nuclear
forces. They got the permit in time to start construction in
March 2019, just when we had a 500-year flood that then did $1
billion of damage to the State.
If they had just gotten the permit done in four years, like
we were talking the average was, we could have been able to
avoid that. The unnecessary delays cost $1 billion and
threatened our national security.
So we have seen what happens, it can be bad. I can cite
some other examples where we have had outcomes. Ms. Goldfuss, I
can tell you about my State, when it comes to transmission
lines that, frankly, it is U.S. Fish and Wildlife that has been
the holdup, not the State.
I would emphasize that I think the key in all this, which
you have been talking about, is early engagement with
community. I think it actually leads to faster completion times
when you engage the community early, because then you do not
get all the opposition when you are trying to actually do the
siting and get everything else done. I certainly emphasize
that.
What I want to emphasize is what we did in the State of
Nebraska with regard to Lean Six Sigma. It is a process
improvement methodology where you map out the process steps it
takes to be able to get a process done. It could be anything.
We did it in a number of our agencies. I think we did it in
18 different agencies. We had 900 different projects that saved
our teammates about 900,000 hours of their time and about $100
million in hard savings.
Specifically, in our Department of Environment and Energy,
we took on our air construction permits. We mapped out the
process, it was 110 steps long. Only four of those steps
actually added value.
We were able to cut about 88 of those steps, and this is
without changing any sort of environmental requirement. We were
able to take the process it takes to issue those permits down
from roughly about 190 days to, we started that process in
2016, and it got down to about 65 days by the end of 2019. So
it cut the process time more than half.
We had no authority to change any sort of requirement with
regard to what companies had to comply with. This is just
making the process, streamlining it, and making it easier.
That is one of the things, Chairman, that I think that we
need to think about as we are talking about permitting reform,
is there are ways to do it that have absolutely nothing to do
with loosening any sort of restrictions, but just through the
process itself to be able to make it better, and we ought to
focus on that as we are thinking about permitting reform.
Actually, not only was it good for the applicants to be
able to get those things faster, Yahoo was looking at expanding
their data center in the Country. There were looking at a
variety of sites, and they actually picked Nebraska to expand
and invested $20 million because of the ease of getting the
permit done in a way that allowed them to have that
predictability and the certainty you were talking about, Mr.
Chairman.
I will start with you, Ms. Goldfuss. Have you heard of Lean
Six Sigma, or process improvement methodologies?
Ms. Goldfuss. I have not heard of it, what was it?
Senator Ricketts. Lean Six Sigma.
Ms. Goldfuss. Lean Six Sigma? No, but I really appreciate
the way you laid that out, because one of the success stories
was the creation of the Federal Permitting Improvement Council
(FIPC) inside the Federal Government, which is designed to look
at where are those bottlenecks, and what are the steps, and
have a lead agency, if you will, that can engage with the
project proponents, so they know who they are talking to.
It also produced a dashboard that gives you transparency
into what those steps are. I think there is a way to kind of
chart this out, and I think with the dollars that were approved
in IRA, there is money that can be used for technology and to
really help FIPC and the Federal Government get some of those
efficiencies you are talking about.
Senator Ricketts. Great.
Mr. Timmons, I am sure you are familiar with Lean Six
Sigma, coming from a manufacturing background.
Mr. Timmons. Yes, Governor, or Senator. I wanted to point
out that Governors really do have----
Senator Carper. He has been called worse. Believe me, he
has been called worse.
Senator Ricketts. Much worse.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Timmons. I always call you Governor, too, Mr. Chairman.
Governors really do have a unique perspective.
I had the opportunity in the 1990's to serve as Chief of
Staff to then-Governor George Allen in Virginia, and one of the
things that he took on was regulatory reform. We modeled our
effort after the successful efforts in the State of Delaware,
where then-Governor Carper had issued an executive order to
create a task force to review permitting reform there, as well.
Governors are leading the way, truly, and your process
improvement is one that is cited often for how we can maintain
our very strong environmental standards, while at the same
time, improving the process and making it much more efficient.
Senator Ricketts. So, you would agree that by looking at
things like Lean Six Sigma as part of the solution, we can
actually help speed up the time it takes to get a permit
without changing any sort of, without losing any sort of
regulation with regard to quality and protecting the
environment?
Mr. Timmons. Yes, sir, and you also referred to it as
process improvements. Whatever you call it, if you can
streamline the process, and you can look at the outcomes and
not worry about duplication and over-aggressive processes, you
get a lot more done, and you get it done better.
Senator Ricketts. Great. Thank you. I yield back.
Senator Carper. You bet. Thanks for those questions.
Senator Sullivan, welcome.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to begin
with a poster. It is a new poster. I bring a lot of posters to
this committee. This one is actually really interesting, and I
would like everybody to maybe comment on this. This goes to the
whole issue of litigation as it relates to permitting and the
challenges to bringing energy projects online. I mean all
energy projects, including renewable energy projects.
The point of the poster, it is a little complicated, but
the striped portion is miles of pipeline, gas pipeline, that
has been canceled or delayed due to litigation or courts just
canceling or upholding pipelines. It is hard to see, but that
is a problem in and of itself. If you look at the green line,
that is the cost of natural gas in America.
There is a really strong correlation between litigation,
canceled pipelines. It is actually seven billion cubic feet per
day of natural gas pipelines taken offline because of
litigation. So the result is huge spikes in the cost of natural
gas.
It is not just natural gas, it is an issue with renewables,
too. There are 15 open cases right now, again, even canceling
wind and solar projects that are happening across the Country
right now, as well. I think this is an issue for everybody.
Mr. Chairman, I am very appreciative that you are holding
this hearing. It is really important. I will begin with you,
Mr. Durbin, and Mr. Timmons, you talked about the high cost of
energy for manufacturing. This is just a high cost of energy
for Americans. Look at those numbers. That is almost certainly
driven by litigation that, in my view, is out of control, not
restricted.
But for Ms. Goldfuss and others, it is also a problem as it
relates to renewables. You may have seen John Kerry, I do not
cite John Kerry often, when he was out at the Swiss gathering,
Davos, he talked about 10 years to site and permit renewable
projects like wind farms. I know Senator Kelly has talked about
that a lot for solar in Arizona.
Can I get first, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Timmons, just in general,
on litigation reform that we need, what a problem this is? And
then maybe, Ms. Goldfuss, if you could talk about the
litigation issues as it relates to renewable projects as well,
which is also a big problem there.
Mr. Durbin. Thank you for the question, Senator Sullivan.
The litigation that has driven the cancellation of these
natural gas pipelines, it is harmful in many ways. Not only is
it potentially increasing costs for manufacturing and consumers
themselves, but when you think about in addition to natural gas
being a critical part of our clean energy economy, it is also
about reliability and affordability for consumers and users of
natural gas. So for us not to be able to transport gas out of
one of the most prolific natural gas fields in the world in the
Marcellus to areas like New England that have to import natural
gas.
Senator Sullivan. Until recently, they were importing it
from Russia.
Mr. Durbin. Some from Russia, but others as well.
Senator Sullivan. Good policy, there. I have no idea. That
is not just hurting the environment, but it is empowering our
adversaries.
Mr. Durbin. Again, I think it is a prize that we have here
in the U.S. to be able to produce this domestic natural gas. It
is our energy security, it is our environmental performance,
and it is our economic strength.
Senator Sullivan. Mr. Timmons, do you have specific
recommendations for this committee on what we could do? That is
a disaster, by any measure. Look at that spike in prices. We
are just hurting ourselves.
Mr. Timmons. So, a couple of things. We clearly need to
have a time limit on the process, which would include some
judicial reforms or legal reforms.
Senator Sullivan. By the way, just real quick on time
limit, and I want to make sure I get to Ms. Goldfuss, too, may
we submit these for the record? Time limit is both the agency's
decisionmaking timeline and the time limit once you get in
litigation that the court has to decide, two elements of time
limit.
Mr. Timmons. Yes. I would also like to just pick up on what
Mr. Durbin talked about in terms of our economic security here
at home, the cost of energy not only for certainly,
manufacturers, but for all consumers. I would also like to
point out that the world is fracturing right now. We see very
clearly in Ukraine why it is important to make sure that we
cannot only develop our own domestic resources, but be in a
position to export those resources like liquified natural gas
to our allies, so that they are not dependent or crushed by our
adversaries, like Russia.
Senator Sullivan. Mr. Chairman, I am just going to ask Ms.
Goldfuss, if you want to just talk about that briefly on the
renewable side, or if you want to talk about natural gas as
well, but the litigation delays that are hurting all American
energy projects.
Ms. Goldfuss. I will be really quick.
I think this is what we have been discussing this whole
time. If we have early engagement, we have seen examples of
where developers, conservation organizations, and community
groups have come together on a permit and have been able to
make the process go faster, because they had that agreement up
front. I think we would reduce a lot of challenges on the back
end if there were community agreements and engagement that
happened on the front end so everybody understood the benefits.
Senator Sullivan. Right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thank you, Senator Sullivan.
Senator Kelly, welcome. Thanks for being here.
Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
all our witnesses for being here today.
I want to start out by talking about microchips. As
everybody knows here, I think they realize this, that
microchips are in everything with an on/off switch, from new
cars to the most advanced fighter jets. We need to make more of
them in the United States.
That is why we worked for nearly two years to negotiate and
pass the CHIPS and Science Act, which provides incentive grants
to companies to construct new production facilities in the
United States. Some of these will be in Arizona.
That is really good for our national security. It is good
for our economy. It creates a lot of good-paying jobs.
Mr. Durbin, as you noted in your testimony, these
incentives come with a new requirement: NEPA reviews. I am
concerned about these requirements. The goal of the CHIPS Act
was to make it easier for companies to build facilities in the
United States, and imposing NEPA requirements on them
undermines the goal.
Mr. Durbin, I will start with you. Do semiconductor
companies already obtain permits prior to beginning
construction?
Mr. Durbin. Senator, thank you for the question. I am
sorry, are you asking whether semiconductor companies currently
have to?
Senator Kelly. Yes, do they have to get permits before they
start construction today?
Mr. Durbin. Yes.
Senator Kelly. OK. So, there are robust environmental
safeguards in place to protect communities. Is that correct?
Mr. Durbin. I believe so.
Senator Kelly. Can you explain, then, what the added layer
of NEPA requirements on these projects will mean, and how it
will impact a project's cost and timeline to completion?
Mr. Durbin. Senator, I think, to your point, the goal of
the law was to incentivize getting these facilities built here,
and we do that by making it more competitive to build here than
to build elsewhere.
While we are certainly not advocating that there is, when
we said all along, all projects, there should be environmental
reviews, community input, but we have to make sure that process
is functional and allows for these decisions to be made
quickly, and these facilities to be built here in the U.S.
Senator Kelly. My understanding then is that you believe
that the NEPA requirements may be added government regulation
that is not necessarily going to maybe help build an
environmentally sound project, but at the same time, is going
to result in delays and increases in cost? Is that correct?
Mr. Durbin. Correct.
Senator Kelly. So, what specific actions could Congress
take to help prevent these NEPA requirements from driving up
project costs and increasing delays?
Mr. Durbin. Senator, again, I think that Congress has an
opportunity to act across, and as Senator Capito mentioned
earlier as well, it is not just NEPA, it is the other
underlying statutes as well to ensure that we can have a
structured, time-bound process whereby the Federal agency
coordination, the timelines for getting decisions, some kind of
a time limit on adjudications, if there are concerns after the
fact, let's make sure we are accelerating the adjudication
process.
Without that, again, I think especially in a situation as
you are describing with semiconductors, we are removing the
types of competitive advantage that we were trying to provide
through the CHIPS and Science Act.
Senator Kelly. Ms. Goldfuss, you mentioned in your
testimony that agencies often have the authority to issue
programmatic environmental assessments or environmental impact
statements. Do you believe that such an approach could make
sense when it comes to the CHIPS Act programs?
Ms. Goldfuss. I am sorry that I am not familiar with
exactly how semiconductors trigger NEPA. I am trying to figure
out exactly what the environmental----
Senator Kelly. My understanding is they do because there is
now these grant programs because of the Federal funding.
Ms. Goldfuss. Because of the funding that goes to that, I
see.
I think the process that we are talking about here is
trying to figure out, what is the information that is going to
be necessary to build these facilities, and what are those
impacts going to be. As we have discussed along the way, it is
really a matter of having that information and doing it in a
timely manner. When it comes to building these facilities,
using the dashboard and using the engagement tools that we have
across the Federal Government will be essential.
Senator Kelly. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Senator Kelly, thanks so much for joining
us.
I think Mr. Markey might be next in line. Senator Markey,
you are up, my friend.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
Identifying the real issues, that is really what we are talking
about here. Real issues. Conversations about permitting need to
be focused on building clean energy and building community
engagement.
Instead, some people are making community involvement the
villain. They are making the National Environmental Policy Act
and environmental reviews into the villain, but I do not think
the American people are really interested in these bogeymen.
Federal agencies have stated that slower turnaround times are
often the result of resource and staffing shortages, for which
we have provided $1 billion in funding in the Inflation
Reduction Act.
Of course, Republicans are going to try to take that money
away. They want to starve the agencies and then say, look how
long it takes, while they aren't giving them the resources that
they need. It is a little game where they want the fox in the
chicken coop, pro-industry officials at the agencies, then
starve the agency, then say, look how long it takes. That is
their game. It has always been their game.
The $1 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act, we are
talking about a new cure. Now, we are applying the medicine,
and we are waiting for it to kick in with all the staffers.
Of course, what is going to happen with Kevin McCarthy is
he will try to cut out all that money. Let's get that money out
of Washington that is the key to cutting the red tape and
getting it all done. It is a little game, all industry driven.
It is eternal. It is crocodile tears.
Additionally, NEPA only applies to Federal actions. That is
it. We just had a 1,000-megawatt hydropower facility OKed up in
Maine. That was all State action up there, with of course, the
natural gas industry funding the opposition to it, because they
want to generate electricity with natural gas and not with
offshore wind or with hydropower coming down from Canada. We
know the game. We can see what is going on, and they use every
tool that they have in order to accomplish that goal. Right
now, fewer than one percent of Federal actions require an
Environmental Impact Statement.
Ms. Goldfuss, based on the existing data, are there
solutions that can help our government work more efficiently
without making arbitrary changes that sacrifice the quality of
environmental reviews or limit community involvement?
Ms. Goldfuss. Absolutely. I started out by thanking all of
you for the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law, because those investments, I saw
personally, add CEQ, this is a bipartisan problem. The Obama
administration and others Administrations moved NEPA experts
into other roles.
So that money is going to be invaluable to these agencies,
not only with the people in the seats to do the work, but also
to update the system that we have that, right now, we have
sometimes PDFs that can not be searched, so one agency has to
duplicate the work of another agency.
That money is crucial to bringing the system into the
modern stage. I think letting that take effect is really
important.
Senator Markey. Yes, and we can not have this conversation
if we are going to not center justice and prevent additional
harms to Black, Brown, indigenous communities as we talk about
the future of our energy grid, especially when fossil fuels
remain on that energy grid. NEPA is a safeguard for
communities. We need robust, upfront community engagement to
power communities with clean energy while empowering them to be
part of the planning.
Ms. Johnson, will members of disadvantaged communities,
including families, small farmers, and business owners, seniors
be at greater risk if NEPA is weakened?
Ms. Johnson. Sure. I think I mentioned in my opening
remarks, people hold NEPA as their law. It gives them a seat at
the table. It gives them voice in the planning process for
these projects.
I also noted that communities aren't standing in inherent
opposition to projects. They want to be at the table and a part
of the negotiating process, the planning process. When that is
done early, we ensure protections, we ensure economic benefit,
we ensure public health and environmental benefit, and it is a
win.
Senator Markey. Thank you.
Can I just say this? I hear all these crocodile tears being
shed about the FERC and why can not it do a better job in
permitting. There are so many red herrings, we need an aquarium
to put it right out in the middle of the committee room.
Here are six things the FERC could do right now, if it
wasn't paralyzed, if we could even only put on a fifth
commissioner, it could finalize the Regional Transmission
Planning and Cost Allocation Rule. It doesn't need any new
legislation. It could finalize the Interconnection Rule, no new
legislation. It could establish minimum transfer requirements
between regions, no new legislation. It could promote the use
of grid-enhancing technologies, no new legislation. It could
continue to prioritize public participation in equity, and it
could have a Federal backstop siting authority.
All of it could be done by the FERC right now, if it had
five commissioners, but it doesn't. Then, we are blamed, and
say, no, look at the permitting process; it doesn't work. They
have the inherent authority to do all that right now, but of
course the goal is to paralyze the agency, defund it, make sure
they do not have a majority, make sure they can not get it
done, and then say, oh look, we need more rules to be put on
the books that strip out protection for local communities to
have their voices heard on these projects that are coming
through.
It is the oldest play in the books, and I just do not think
that this Congress should fall for it.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Senator Markey, thank you very much.
Senator Lummis, how are you doing?
Senator Lummis. I am well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. You are next.
Senator Lummis. I appreciate it, thank you. Welcome, panel,
as well.
I can not help but quote our Ranking Member.
Senator Carper. How about the Chairman?
Senator Lummis. You know, say something quotable, and I
will quote you.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. How is this? People do not care how much
you know until you know how much they care.
Senator Lummis. Well, there you go.
Senator Carper. How is that, huh? That is really Teddy
Roosevelt.
Senator Lummis. You just did it. Thank you for that little
gem.
The little gem that applies today is, ``You can not build
back better if you can not build at all.'' I have heard Senator
Capito say that again and again, and I think that is absolutely
right.
What we are finding is, according to the congressional
Research Service, NEPA is the most frequently litigated Federal
environmental statute. I think that when something stands out
as the most litigated environmental statute, there must be
something that we can do to change that, to improve NEPA.
NEPA reform doesn't mean NEPA degradation. I think it
really can mean just improvement, so litigation is not the go-
to response to a NEPA process.
I might ask you, Mr. Timmons, should litigation be part of
the conversation here going forward?
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Senator, for that question.
Yes, litigation and a time limit on litigation I think is
very much a part of the process. You mentioned a CEQ study on
how often NEPA was sued. It is in the court quite a bit. Public
interest groups, 175 suits, individual citizen associations,
95, property owners, 15, State and local governments, 48.
Business groups really only sued NEPA about 12 percent of the
time during that process.
I do think, and I want to acknowledge Ms. Johnson's
testimony and comments, because I do think it is very important
for businesses, local governments, citizens, to work together
early in the process to smooth out any concerns that exist.
At the National Association of Manufacturers, we have
engaged in a relationship with Matthew Tejada, whom you know as
the head of the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice. He is
working on processes, to put processes in place to really
enhance those conversations.
That information, we had Matthew present to our Council of
Manufacturing Associations, which represents 260 manufacturing
associations, because we know that, as Chairman Carper said, if
it is not perfect, let's figure out how to make it better. All
of these processes can be made better.
I think good points have been made across the board from
the witnesses today. There is a definite issue when it comes to
litigation, and whether that is in communities of color,
agricultural communities, economically disadvantaged
communities like the one that I was raised in Ohio, in
Appalachian communities, those issues do exist. We can
streamline the process. We can streamline the review process,
and we can certainly streamline and put a shot clock, if you
will, on the legal challenges that exist.
Senator Lummis. Thank you.
Mr. Durbin, if Congress doesn't act to fix this broken
environmental review and permitting process, and I really
believe it is broken, will there be more manufacturing and
energy production abroad?
Mr. Durbin. Thank you for the question, Senator.
When it comes to energy and manufacturing, if it isn't done
here, it is going to be done somewhere else. One of the
advantages of having, whether it is energy production or
manufacturing done here is that we do have robust environmental
statutes. We do operate in a clean, responsible and effective
way. Again, without improving the process here, we are not
getting all the three core objectives, which is our economic
competitiveness, our energy security, and a transition to a
cleaner economy.
Senator Lummis. Global emissions are global.
Mr. Durbin. Exactly.
Senator Lummis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Sorry about the remark about your quotable-ness. I will just,
maybe I should just call you Chairman Quotable-ness.
Senator Carper. I have been called worse, too.
Senator Merkley, welcome. We are delighted that you are
here. Please proceed.
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Each time I think
about you, I hear the words ``do more of what works and less of
what doesn't.'' So, you have burned that into my brain, and I
offer that today.
I wanted to begin by welcoming you, Dana Johnson. I am so
glad you are here to talk about environmental justice.
We are talking here about permits that will allow a lot
more fossil fuels to be delivered into the manufacturing
communities that make plastics or potentially make hydrogen or
certain burned fossil fuels, meaning there is going to be a lot
more toxic chemicals released in the same communities that are
already suffering from those toxic chemicals.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Ms. Johnson. Well, if you are in a community where this
infrastructure is placed and there is talk of adding additional
infrastructure, then I believe you would consider that to be a
bad thing when you look at the public health impacts of that.
Senator Merkley. We renamed one of our subcommittees here
to include the words environmental justice, so I am glad you
are here to help us ponder how some actions we take could make
environmental justice or environmental acts less just. That
needs to be a key part of our conversation.
Ms. Goldfuss, did NRDC oppose the previous permitting
reform bill from the last Congress, the Energy Independence and
Security Act of 2022?
Ms. Goldfuss. Yes, we did.
Senator Merkley. Has anything changed that would have you
now say that bill is a good idea?
Ms. Goldfuss. No.
Senator Merkley. Why did you oppose it?
Ms. Goldfuss. We opposed it because of the timelines that
were put on judicial review, the Mountain Valley Pipeline that
was included in it, and a sense that it was written to not
improve the process the way we would support.
Senator Merkley. There are folks who are saying, let's do
all of the above. Let's do a lot more fossil, and let's do more
renewables.
I have witnessed how the rest of the world responds to
that, by saying, oh, you are lobbying us to reduce our use of
coal in Indonesia or change our policies in Vietnam or stop
importing coal from Australia to India, and so on and so forth,
and they kind of go, huh, wasn't the United States just
proceeding to do a lot more new fossil projects? Does doing new
fossil projects strengthen or weaken the power of our example
in working with the world to tackle this climate chaos
challenge?
Ms. Goldfuss. It absolutely hurts our leadership abroad
when we are sending a message that climate is a top priority
for us, we just made the largest investment in transitioning to
clean energy that has ever been made in the world, and then if
we are, at the same time, increasing or permitting at the same
rate as we were previously, it is a very contradictory message
to say, we can do this, but you cannot.
Senator Merkley. Certainly, we do not have a lot of time,
so if we are going to build new infrastructure, fossil
infrastructure that is 30 to 50 years in the future and creates
a stream of revenues that end up lobbying Congress to continue
that for yet another generation, if that happens, is our effort
to bend the curve on global warming gases pretty much toast?
Ms. Goldfuss. Yes, but I would hate to be the climate
doomer-ism, and thank you for all the tools you gave us,
because I do believe that we can address the problem that we
have been talking about today. Really, the bipartisan approach
you have taken here, and all the Senators have taken here, is
heartening. We can figure out how to do this.
Senator Merkley. U.N. Secretary General Guterres said ``new
fossil fuel projects are incompatible with 1.5 degrees. End all
licensing on funding of new fossil fuel projects. Otherwise, it
is a death sentence for the world.'' Does he have it about
right?
Ms. Goldfuss. That is what the science says.
Senator Merkley. The science doesn't matter, because it is
our generation that is responsible for what happens over the
next 30 to 50 years. If we get it wrong now, and we do a
permitting, let's not call it a reform, a permitting bill that
will expedite fossil fuel projects, aren't we going in the
wrong direction?
Ms. Goldfuss. Yes.
Senator Merkley. To go to permitting, we do need permitting
for more transmission lines. A study, which I will ask to enter
for the record, the title is ``Evidence-based recommendations
for improving Environmental Policy Act implementation'' from
the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, and I ask unanimous
consent that it be put in the record.
Senator Carper. Without objection.
[The referenced information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Merkley. Thank you.
It says, the delays we found, and they are talking about
delays that happened in implementing getting licenses to do
projects, are often caused by factors only tangentially related
to NEPA, like inadequate agency budget, staff turnover, delays
receiving information from permit applicants, and compliance
with other laws. Improving NEPA efficacy, we argue, should
therefore focus on improving the capacity of the agency.
Do you share that view?
Ms. Goldfuss. Absolutely.
Senator Merkley. I have seen a whole series of projects in
Oregon that have moved very slowly. Almost always, it has to do
with the actor not getting the information that is required to
go through the next step.
I am very concerned, Mr. Chairman, that we are on a path
here where we are not actually addressing the real problem. It
isn't a problem with NEPA, and my colleague Senator Markey just
pointed out six factors that all have to do with FERC. I can
point out many, many examples of where the delays are
overwhelmingly caused by the lack of the applicant getting the
information required or the shortage of staff to review those.
So, I would suggest that we not go on the wrong path that
ends up basically doing damage to the worldwide effort to take
on climate change as we proceed as a committee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Senator Merkley, thank you. Thanks for
those words and for joining us today.
Senator Capito, second round.
Senator Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Both of us began our statements saying that we wanted to
try to find a bipartisan sweet spot here, and I laid out some
tenets of what I thought would be some of the things I want,
knowing I am not going to get everything. One of them was a
technology or fuel neutral to benefit energy projects of all
kinds. I just have a couple comments from some of the things I
have heard.
Ms. Johnson, Senator Cardin talked about the Reconnect
Program that we built into the IIJA. He talked specifically
about a project in Baltimore that occurred in the 1970's, I
think, where it split and very much damaged a community of
color.
To try to make that right, there is going to be a project
there, however, that project has to get permitted. We could be
sitting here 10 years from now, and Senator Cardin could be
sitting here, and he could have the very same problems that we
are talking about, litigious deadlines that aren't met, and all
the things that we have talked about. I think we have to keep
in mind, no matter what we want to see in the future,
permitting is at the base of all this.
Ms. Goldfuss, your organization sues a lot of people. It
sues a lot in the environmental area. That is your sweet spot,
there. We heard about CHIPS. We passed a CHIPS program where we
are going to build EVs and we are going to put all these chips
in here, but you have to permit the mine in order to get the
materials to put into the chips, because there are made in
America provisions in here.
Have you and your organization ever supported a mine for
critical minerals anywhere in this Country?
Ms. Goldfuss. That is not really our role to support mines.
We only oppose them if they are in special places or critical
habitat where it is going to cause damage to the environment.
Senator Capito. The process is set up to look at the
critical habitat through Fish and Wildlife so that you have
mitigations, so that you, I looked into a project along the
Ohio, so that you re-situate the 100,000 mussels in the river,
and you work with the manufacturer and you work with the
company to mitigate all of this.
That provision was not done because somebody sued, that
provision was done because the process went forward and Fish
and Wildlife said, this is what you have to do. The company was
there, the community was there. This unending delay in the
judicial system really is, I think, set up to delay, not just
delay projects, but to actually have them be discontinued.
Would you say any kind of judicial review should be part of
a reform in our permitting process as we look at this?
Ms. Goldfuss. The statistics on how much NEPA is sued, it
is less than one percent of the decisions that are made, .22
percent is the fact. There are all kinds of numbers being
thrown out here. There is NEPA, there is the Endangered Species
Act, there are all these different steps that need to happen.
I think what we have been trying to say is, if we have a
good process on the front end, there is less likely to be
judicial review or any kind of challenge on the back end.
Senator Capito. Agreed, but I mean, I think, in my view, a
good process on the front end is not skirting any environmental
provisions. We have all talked about that. We have talked about
community involvement and how very important that is, getting
everybody at the table.
But if we are going to go to an energy transition where it
is all windmills and it is all solar panels, and all the
provisions for re-siting or building a new natural gas or doing
CCUS, which we have tax incentivized here at the Senate level
with the Presidential signature, those are not going to be ones
that we are ever going to permit because of the fuel source
that they have, even though they are cleaning up a coal plant
or a natural gas plant that might be a high emitter.
That doesn't make any sense to me, because we can not go to
these other sources, because we do not have the battery
capacity. Let's find that. I am very concerned.
My heart is in this permitting reform thing. I want to work
out a compromise here. I am concerned because I feel like it is
going to be to the exclusion of other things that make sense.
That is concerning to me.
When I hear that the solution to the problem is to hire
more people, you know, Senator Markey was talking about the
bell whistle words that everybody hears, to me, that just means
postpone, delay, grow the bureaucracies, and that is troubling.
Thank you for letting me get that off my chest. That is
all.
Senator Carper. Senator Whitehouse, I think you are next. I
know you have a lot going on today. Thank you for being here.
Senator Whitehouse. Great. Yes, no, it has been a busy day
for a lot of us, but it is great to be here, and I appreciate
the hearing.
Let me ask Mr. Timmons and Mr. Durbin for their
organizations, as between the permitting reform that we are
talking about here and working on in the Senate EPW committee,
and the permitting reform as it has manifested itself in
Speaker McCarthy's, we call it, default bill, for want of a
better name, which would your organizations prefer to see
enacted?
Mr. Timmons. I should let you take this first, Marty.
Senator Whitehouse. Give him the next one first. It doesn't
get any easier.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Timmons. As you might expect, Senator, and let me just
say, thank you for that question. Your questions to me are
always thought-provoking, and I appreciate that.
We are not going to engage in picking winners and losers
between House versions and Senate versions. The interest is
working on a bipartisan and obviously, a cross-chamber and with
the Administration proposal that will actually get done, that
everybody can feel good about. That is what we are headed for.
That is why we are here today.
Senator Whitehouse. Mr. Durbin?
Mr. Durbin. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse.
We supported the House bill. We think it does move the ball
forward, but we also understand the entire Congress has to act.
We are so anxious to be part of the conversation here today, we
launched a campaign last week as 350 organizations from around
the Country, all different types of businesses that are simply
saying, get something done.
So we do support H.R. 1, but we are engaged and fully
committed to this process, as well.
Senator Whitehouse. Is it important to your organization
that the permitting reform supports clean energy efforts as
well as fossil fuel infrastructure and development?
Mr. Durbin. Absolutely. Clean energy, traditional energy,
we have had a lot of energy discussion here, but let us not
forget about the roads and the bridges and the water technology
and broadband. We have talked about the CHIPS Act. It is all of
those.
Senator Whitehouse. Mr. Timmons, as between a bill that
supports primarily fossil fuel infrastructure and permitting
reform that supports clean energy development and your clean
energy constituents?
Mr. Timmons. Sure. As you and I have discussed before, we
do support an all-of-the-above approach to reduce the overall
cost of energy in this Country. One of the reasons for that is
exactly what Mr. Durbin pointed out.
We also need to be thinking about all the other projects
that were funded in the Transportation Infrastructure Bill, the
CHIPS and Science Act, as well as IRA. One of the ways that we
do that is my reducing the cost of doing business here in the
United States, so that we can produce the products that will
help achieve those goals.
Senator Whitehouse. As to the House Republican effort to
repeal the IRA credits for clean energy, I will start with you,
Mr. Durbin. Does your organization support that effort at
repeal?
Mr. Durbin. Let me first say that, with regard to the debt
limit, our view is that is not an option. We can not allow
default. So No. 1, whatever it takes to keep that from
happening, and that solution is going to have to be bipartisan,
so whatever it takes for Congress to now figure out how do you
avoid default, but we did support the IRA provisions, and many
of our companies do, as well.
Senator Whitehouse. Just to be clear, you did support the
IRA provisions in the IRA, not supporting the IRA provisions in
the McCarthy bill that would repeal the IRA provisions?
Mr. Durbin. Correct.
Senator Whitehouse. Got it. So, you do not support the
repeal, you do support the provisions.
Mr. Timmons, your organization?
Mr. Timmons. I echo what Mr. Durbin has said. Full faith in
credit of the United States must never be in question, but we
have not engaged in that discussion.
Senator Whitehouse. So, you have not taken a position in
support of the House bill that would repeal the IRA?
Mr. Timmons. Correct.
Senator Whitehouse. Have you taken a position against it,
or are you neutral?
Mr. Timmons. We haven't engaged in that yet.
Senator Whitehouse. Last, with respect to the House effort
to repeal the methane fee that our Chairman had such a
significant role in moving into the Inflation Reduction Act,
landing the support of the Energy Committee Chairman for that
as well, which was no small feat. That methane fee, the methane
pollution fee, would be repealed in the House measure.
Do either of your organizations support that repeal?
No from Mr. Timmons. Was that also no from Mr. Durbin?
Mr. Durbin. No.
Senator Whitehouse. Two noes. OK, thank you very much. My
time is up.
Senator Carper. Let me just note, those are the right
answers. Thank you. Thank you, Sheldon.
Senator Ricketts, you are next, and then I will wrap it up.
Take your time.
Senator Ricketts. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Did you just say take my time?
Senator Carper. No, I said take your time.
Senator Ricketts. Oh, take my time, as in my time now, OK.
I thought you meant I got like, we are going to be here for
another hour.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. I will be back after lunch.
[Laughter.]
Senator Ricketts. Again, getting back to the need to be
able to do this, in this committee earlier, at previous
hearings, we talked about the electric vehicle emissions
standards and so forth, rules that came out that would require
two-thirds of all new vehicles by 2032 being electric vehicles.
Some of the testimony there was that, if you applied that same
rules that were going to be, say, if you electrified the entire
U.S. vehicle fleet, like cars and light trucks and so forth,
you would use up 40 percent of our current power generation
that we are doing today. For heavy trucks, it would be 10
percent.
Clearly, there is going to be a need for additional power
generation. It does have an impact.
I can tell you, Nebraska is the only public power State,
100 percent public power. In working, for example, with our
officials at the Omaha Public Power District, with demand they
have there with a growing community, and this is not directly
related to permitting, but they have had to keep online coal-
burning plants they were planning on transitioning over to
natural gas plants because of the demand. If you can not build
the demand, then you are going to keep dirtier sources like the
coal-burning plants. This is an important thing that we figure
out to be able to accomplish the growth of our Country and
create jobs and that sort of thing.
Getting back to what I was talking about with permitting,
Ms. Hayes, are you familiar with Lean Six Sigma, or have heard
of process improvement methodologies like that?
Ms. Hayes. I have not heard of that one in particular, no,
sir.
Senator Ricketts. Are you familiar with the idea of process
improvement? I guess where I am going is, would you agree that
looking at the process that was described earlier, that is a
potential for us to be able to streamline this process without
sacrificing any sort of environmental quality?
Ms. Hayes. There sounds to be merit in that proposal.
Senator Ricketts. OK, good. That is good enough. I will
take that.
Mr. Durbin, I am going to ask basically the same question.
Are you familiar with Lean Six Sigma and process improvement
analogies?
Mr. Durbin. I am, from days representing the chemical
industry and DuPont's use of Six Sigma.
Senator Ricketts. Oh, OK, great. So, you are familiar with
it.
Do you think that this should be part of a solution that we
are looking at when we are looking at, how can we streamline
the process to turn these permits around faster without
sacrificing environmental quality?
Mr. Durbin. I think there are huge opportunities to use
that type of process improvement strategy to define where are
the challenges.
Ms. Goldfuss mentioned earlier the FIPC and FAST-41, which
has created some improvements by having a dashboard and
streamlining the process.
By the way, I should note that the FAST-41 and One Federal
Decision that created FIPC was actually a proposal that was put
out there by the U.S. Chamber and NRDC, so there is hope. There
is hope that we can make progress here on this issue as well.
Ms. Goldfuss. That is right.
Senator Ricketts. Very good, very good.
Mr. Timmons, could you talk to me a little bit about what
are some of the challenges your members face with the current,
maybe you can elaborate, I know we mentioned it before, but can
you elaborate a little bit, what are some of the challenges
your members face when they run into these permit processes
that are taking longer than they expect? What kind of impact
does that have on creating jobs for American workers?
Mr. Timmons. Well, any type of uncertainty leads to,
frankly, investment, people have to figure out where they are
going to put their investments. I think the thing that is most
concerning to those of us who represent manufacturers in
America is when the demand for a product increases, there has
to be an investment made somewhere to create the supply to meet
that demand. We want that done here in the United States.
Oftentimes in other countries, permitting processes are
more expeditious, not necessarily better, by the way. So if a
manufacturer has to make an investment decision, sometimes
those decisions either can get delayed if the facility is going
to be made here, or that investment can be made offshore. We
simply do not want to see that.
We have, and I noted earlier, during the pandemic, we say
pretty stark situations where much of our, for instance, our
personal protective equipment was not being made here in the
United States. If we have a commitment to doing that here in
the United States, then we need to get that done now. We have
to move those projects along.
The projects that were part of the infrastructure funding,
the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, all of
those projects have such potential here in this Country.
However, they are not going to get done anytime soon if we can
not move the permitting process along. That means jobs; that
means lost opportunities in terms of jobs and wages and
strengthening communities. That is why we are pushing for this
reform.
Senator Ricketts. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Timmons.
Mr. Chairman, I will turn it back over to you.
Senator Chairman. You did a great job, thanks.
I have one or two more quotes to share here that seem to be
relevant. A lot of figures are being thrown around here. I have
lost track of them, actually. They are being used to take
different sides of the same argument.
I always wondered who used to say, ``figures do not lie,
but liars do figure.'' How do you like that? Figures do not
lie, but liars do figure. That was Mark Twain. I didn't know
that, but it comes to mind.
One of my favorite Mark Twain quotes that I use, we had a
big event at Delaware State University this week, the No. 2
ranked HBCU in the Country now. We had about 150 students from
all over the State that were selected by the schools as
extraordinary scholars.
I shared with them another Mark Twain quote. Most people do
not know that Mark Twain said this, but Mark Twain said this:
``The two most important days in our life are the day we are
born and the day we figure out why.'' The two most important
days in our lives, the day we are born, and the day we figure
out why. Those are probably ones that we can take, if we can
take nothing else away from this hearing today, that might be a
good one.
I was joking earlier about adjectives we could use to
describe this panel. I think the last one I used was
``legendary.'' I think another one that would be appropriate
would be ``helpful.'' I want to ask you to be helpful for just
a little bit longer.
I want to go to, Mr. Durbin, I will ask you to maybe just
go first here, but I like to ask questions near the end of a
hearing like this, where something that is an issue as
important as this, about which there are sometimes strongly
held differences, but also agreement.
I like to ask sometimes in a closing question, maybe the
last question I will ask is, where is the common ground? Where
is the common ground that we need to focus on? One of the
things that this committee is really good at, we are workhorses
in this committee, and we also believe that bipartisan
solutions are lasting solutions. We try to work with a lot of
respect for one another.
Where is the common ground on these issues, please? Go
ahead.
Mr. Durbin. Senator, thank you for the question, and thanks
again for the invitation to be here.
We have seen a lot of common ground here as far as a need
to improve a process to get projects built. I want to make
clear again, this is not about undermining environmental
statutes, and I couldn't agree more with Ms. Johnson on the
need for early engagement from project developers and everyone
else involved.
Senator Carper. Could you say that again, just repeat those
words again? That is worth repeating.
Mr. Durbin. Absolutely. We fully support the idea of having
early engagement of affected communities with the project
developers and everyone else involved. We agree that can help
to offset problems later down the road.
Again, I think that when we look at the totality of the
opportunities in front of us that were provided by laws passed
by the previous Congress and the great needs that we have, the
priorities we have for reducing emissions, for strengthening
our energy security, for maintaining our global competitiveness
economically, that is why we were able to get such a broad
coalition around supporting doing something.
We are very bullish on the idea that working with you and
the other committees here in the Senate that we can get
something done this year.
Senator Carper. Mr. Timmons, go ahead.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to quote
you again.
Senator Carper. This is my favorite part of the hearing,
when the witnesses start quoting me.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Timmons. You said at the very beginning, if it is not
perfect, you make it better. I think that is what we can agree
on. Four and half years for permitting, do we know what the
magic number is? No, but I think we know intuitively that
amount of time is too long. Five, 10, 15 years, when other
countries like Canada, the European Union, Australia, they are
able to move projects along two to three years maximum,
oftentimes, and they have similar environmental protections
that we do.
We have laws that were written in the last century. They
can be improved, and I think we can all agree on that. I also
like to look at the ultimate goals. What are we trying to
achieve? We are trying to make America stronger. We are trying
to protect our economic security, our national security. We are
trying to strengthen manufacturing here in the United States,
create more well-paying jobs, cleaner air, cleaner water,
healthier environment, and stronger communities.
I think when we all have that as our goal, and we figure
out how we can achieve that, and certainly take full advantage
of Infrastructure Investment Act, IRA, and the CHIPS and
Science Act, we are going to go a long way to achieving those
goals.
Senator Carper. Good. Thank you for that.
Ms. Hayes?
Ms. Hayes. Thank you for the question.
I think there were a number of elements of commonality you
heard today. Maybe a better answer to Senator Ricketts in
talking about process improvement is, I think it is important
to focus on not just individual components of the environmental
process, but the beginning and the end, and making sure that
there is certainty there, and providing process improvements to
make sure that the review can be completed within that period
of time.
I saw that NAM also supported having enforceable deadlines,
and we agree very much with that.
We also agree with Senator Whitehouse's proposal around
setting a clear threshold for Federal jurisdiction for high-
capacity, regionally significant transmission. I will note that
Ms. Goldfuss also supported that provision in her written
testimony that was submitted prior to today's hearing.
Thank you very much for the question and for hearing our
testimony today.
Senator Carper. Thank you, ma'am.
Ms. Johnson?
Ms. Johnson. Sure. I think that we can all agree that we
have a shared vision for an energy future that helps us reach
our emissions reduction goals that prioritizes people, whether
we are talking about jobs or improved health outcomes.
We have a vision for renewable energy deployment, but I
think that two things can be true in the conversation that we
are having today, in that we have to be clear that we do not
sacrifice communities as we do the work of improving our
permitting process. For us, it is clear that public
participation, consideration of incremental and cumulative
impacts are important. We have made investments through the
Inflation Reduction Act in the process, and we must ensure that
we continue to prioritize people as we move forward.
Senator Carper. OK, thank you, ma'am.
Ms. Goldfuss?
Ms. Goldfuss. Chairman Carper, thank you so much for this
hearing. I have participated in a lot of permitting
conversations, hearings here, in the House, and this was a
really productive conversation.
Senator Carper. Would you say that again, ma'am?
[Laughter.]
Ms. Goldfuss. A really productive conversation.
Senator Carper. Thank you so much.
Ms. Goldfuss. I am just heartened by the complete alignment
I heard here around the need for early engagement. That is new.
I do not know exactly what that looks like in terms of
legislative language, but that is really, really promising.
I also heard a lot of agreement around transmission. There
are administrative solutions to that, as Senator Markey laid
out, but there is also the potential for Congress to step in on
that front.
Then I also heard, and this is a huge step forward, because
of all the actions that were taken in the last Congress, and
the opportunity before the United States right now to build the
future we need, to talk about the people, to talk about the
places, but also to talk about the projects that we need as a
Country, we all agree that there are changes that need to
happen, and that is also a huge change.
Senator Carper. Good. Thank you very much for those words.
I go back and forth on a train most days to Washington in
the morning, and back home at night to Delaware. It is about a
90-minute ride. It is some of my most productive time. I just
love to be in Delaware and sleep in my own bed.
Last night when I was home, I was sitting down and having a
bite to eat with my wife, and she said, well, what did you all
do today? I shared with her a couple of things. I said, one of
the best parts of my day, though, I invited one of the
Republican House members who actually chairs a sister committee
to us in the House, I invited him just to come to meet me in
the Capitol and maybe have a cup of coffee and just talk and
get to know each other.
I think Joe Biden has a saying, I have heard a lot of his,
and he has heard a few of mine, but one of the things he has,
politics is personal, all diplomacy is personal. I think, in an
interesting way, this idea of outreach to communities, maybe
communities of color, communities that are disadvantaged or
whatever, but the idea of that early outreach, that is what I
do.
I think one of the most, one of the reasons why Senator
Capito and I get along so well and our staffs work so well
together, we kind of like, it is trickle down, and I think it
kind of trickles down amongst the other members of this
committee, is we try to meet every Thursday, just about every
Thursday, either in person or on the phone, just to talk about
her priorities, what we are doing right, what we are doing
wrong, legislation that we ought to be taking up. It makes a
real difference.
I think the conversation I had with the House Republican
leader and the chairman of the committee of jurisdiction,
sister committee, I think that will make a difference, too, for
both of us, and I hope for our Country.
I am really glad we started with agreement of the value in
the early engagement. We have a great opportunity here, and I
do not want us to squander it. It is a great opportunity. Not
everyone in that Senate voted for the IRA, and we know in the
House, but there is a lot of good there. We are pushing a lot
of money toward doing a lot of good.
I have been a strong believer, my colleagues here have
heard me say more than they want to remember, it is possible to
do good things for our planet, preserve our planet, clean air,
clean water, address climate change, and create jobs and
economic opportunity at the same time. It is just imperative
that we do that.
I like to use, for example, Kigali. For people that might
be watching us on television, what the heck is Kigali? It is a
treaty that we adopted in the Senate last year that will reduce
emissions from refrigerants in our air conditioners, our
freezers, and refrigerators, that refrigerants that are HFCs,
hydrofluorocarbons, they are about, I think, a thousand times
more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. We have
agreed to phase them down over 15 years, and at the same time,
creating tens of thousands of jobs, American jobs, good-paying
jobs, and billions of dollars of economic activity and value.
We have, I think, a great opportunity to replicate with
respect to permitting reform here, a great opportunity to
replicate that earlier example, and that is my intent. I do not
want to speak for Senator Capito, but I believe that is her
intent, as well. That would be a great thing for this Country
and for our workers and a great thing for our planet.
I do not know President Macron well, but I have met him a
couple of times. Once right before he gave an address to a
joint session of the Congress about two, three, four years ago,
he came in, just like it was the President coming in to give
the State of the Union Address. He came in, and almost all the
House and Senate members were there to hear him speak.
He spoke in English, but as he came through the aisle, I
got to shake hands with him. It just happened by dumb luck. I
was standing in the right place, and I spoke to him a little
bit in French, and he spoke back.
It was interesting when he gave his address, a couple of
times our eyes met, and I was trying to give him encouragement
in what he was saying. One of the things he said that day I
will never forget. He talked about our planet Earth. He said,
this is the only planet we are going to have. There is no
planet B. Think about that: no planet B. We have to take care
of it.
I think this hearing today is maybe going to help us do
that, to take care of this planet, because there is no planet
B.
Ms. Johnson, I thought near the beginning, when you spoke,
you talked about highlighting your data, about one percent of
Federal actions require an Environmental Impact Statement,
which is the most stringent review under NEPA. You went on to
say approximately four percent of projects are completed within
an Environmental Assessment, which is a less stringent review.
You went on to say, the other 95 percent of all Federal actions
are completed as categorical exclusions.
The last piece of what you said was this, this is data that
has been shared by the Council on Environmental Quality and
helps to put the role of NEPA into perspective. I think that
was especially, every one of you made great contributions here
today, every one of you, but you sort of led off with that, and
I remember that. If you do not mind, I will quote you in the
future. I will, of course, take credit for it.
[Laughter.]
Senator Carper. I actually quote President Macron a lot. We
have no planet B. I quote him a lot. He was at a State dinner
hosted by President Biden a couple of months ago in Washington.
I got to meet him again, and I told him about that quote. I
said, I have quoted you, like, a hundred times or more,
including on national TV, and I have never given you credit for
it. He said, we have words in French that describe people like
you. So he has a sense of humor.
One housekeeping item. I am going to ask unanimous consent
to submit for the record letters of support and other materials
for the nominations and the legislation that our committee
approved today.
[The referenced information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Also, Senators will be allowed to submit
questions for the record for today's hearing through the close
of business on Wednesday, May 10th. We are going to compile
those questions and send them to our witnesses and ask all of
you to try to reply by Wednesday, the 24th of May.
I love to do unanimous consent requests like this right at
the end, especially when there is nobody here to object, and
so, I can get away with murder. However, in this case, I am
going to get away with salvation, and the salvation of our
planet and the people who live on it and will live on it in the
future.
With that, I think it is a wrap, and this hearing is
adjourned. Thank you all very, very much. God bless.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[all]