Senators look to revive permitting talks, but put onus on Trump

Key Senate negotiators on Wednesday said they could revive stalled talks over easing federal permitting rules if the Trump administration stops its attacks on renewable energy projects.

The comments from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and others come as pressure builds for Congress to act in a bipartisan manner to address voters' concerns about rising electricity prices caused in part by surging power demand from the build-out of AI data centers, a daunting prospect in a midterm election year. Senators had been negotiating permitting law changes before Democrats walked away in response to the Trump administration's order to stop on offshore wind projects that had already had their permits approved.

"I still want to pass bipartisan Senate permitting reform," said Whitehouse, ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, at a hearing. "But it makes no sense to pass a bipartisan permitting reform that will be illegally butchered by a lawless executive branch vindictively, irrationally and dishonestly. The responsibility for resuscitating permitting reform rests now upon the executive branch, upon credible confidence that the nonsense will stop."

EPW Chair Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said making it easier to build energy projects of all energy types - something lawmakers in both parties have tried unsuccessfully to do for years - would "relieve the economic pressure Americans are facing across the nation."

Capito added that she empathized with the position of Democrats, led by Whitehouse and Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who paused permitting talks last month over the White House's assault on offshore wind and other renewable projects. Their decision to cut off talks came just after House Republicans passed their own permitting legislation with bipartisan support.

"We have all had communities we represent impacted by projects that were delayed or outright canceled by new administrations," said Capito, who referenced the Biden administration's blocking of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. "Let's remove the politics from permitting once and for all."

"We feel your pain," added Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), directing her comments at Democrats. "We are in the same boat now. We need some certainty."

Whitehouse took pains to credit Capito and Senate GOP leadership for how they've approached permitting talks, as he laid the blame squarely at the Trump administration.

"This is not Democrat versus Republican. This is legislative versus executive," Whitehouse said. "Proceeding with this bipartisan hearing is our demonstration of hope that the nonsense can be stopped, and of trust in our Republican colleagues to get to a good bill."

He said he was encouraged by the "harmony" expressed from a broad array of industries testifying who are pushing for legislation to restrain a president's power to revoke permits or stall routine approvals for energy projects.

Solar Energy Industries Association President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper said at the hearing that "the federal permitting process has lost credibility regarding solar projects." She emphasized that any reforms must reverse Interior Secretary Doug Burgum's order from last year requiring his personal review of each step of wind and solar projects built on federal lands.

Canceling permits and delaying approvals will cause electricity prices to spike because of a potential supply and demand imbalance, Hopper added.

"Whether it happens prior to approval, or especially if it happens after those electrons are baked into the grid planning, if those go away, we all know what happens," Hopper said. "Our prices go up. Because there's a scarcity of a really much needed commodity. And so the impact on homeowners, on businesses, on all of us, is pretty impactful."

Dustin Meyer, senior vice president of policy, economics and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute, echoed that sentiment, stating that a permitting bill should prevent "arbitrary suspensions or revocations" of permits "driven by political or policy shifts rather than new facts or violations."

"Done correctly, it will provide a necessary correction to a system that no longer functions as intended for anyone seeking to build any type of infrastructure in the United States," Meyer added.

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