CHICAGO — Much like on Capitol Hill, the chatter among energy policy wonks here at the Democratic National Convention this week has been finding a path for legislation on permitting and the grid.
Lawmakers and energy industry leaders have been talking up the prospects for passing an overhaul of the approval process for projects like transmission and solar farms by the end of the year.
“Certainly I think it could happen,” Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas), who represents a district in the energy-rich Houston area, said at a panel discussion Wednesday hosted by Punchbowl News.
Fletcher said she believed the lame-duck session of Congress represents the best opportunity for a bipartisan compromise to hitch a ride in a must-pass bill, like an omnibus package.
“We have an actual shot,” agreed Jason Grumet, president of the American Clean Power Association, during a separate Punchbowl-hosted event.
Some members, like Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), have been making the rounds at various receptions and events to reinforce the importance of compromise in any permitting deal between environmental groups and oil and gas interests.
“People who think we’re going to get a deal that gets 60 votes [in the Senate] without dealing with natural gas, I think, are just being unrealistic,” Peters told POLITICO’s E&E News during the mainstream environmental movement’s big off-site celebration Tuesday afternoon.
The renewed interest in a permitting overhaul deal comes almost a month after Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and ranking member John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) unveiled S. 4753, the “Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.”
Most progressive activists and Democratic congressional climate hawks only want to streamline the process for transmission lines and renewable generation, while many Republicans are only interested in clearing the way for more oil and gas projects.
Manchin and Barrasso’s bill would do both, something many moderate lawmakers consider a breakthrough. It sailed through committee before the August recess, 15-4.
“I want to see what the House reaction is to that, but I was definitely impressed by the direction that we’re headed,” Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.), chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, said in a brief interview.
“I do a lot of work in hydropower, and we can’t make the changes that we need to get to more hydro in the portfolio without permitting reform — and it’s true for nuclear, it’s true for solar, it’s true for wind,” she said.
‘It’s unifying’
American Gas Association President Karen Harbert said in Chicago this week the group was open to the Manchin-Barrasso framework.
“It’s unifying,” she said alongside Grumet. “The Senate bill has a chance, we’re all doing everything that we can to get it over the finish line, and if it doesn’t happen by the end of the calendar year, we’re all going to fight like hell next year.”
Mike Sommers, head of the American Petroleum Institute, said it was his organization’s top priority to see permitting reform passed quickly.
But the oil and gas sector’s enthusiasm for the Manchin-Barrasso bill could be a red flag for green groups.
On Tuesday evening, Peters was preparing to speak at an event to be convened by the Progressive Policy Institute, where he planned to make the case that environmental advocates need to stop interfering with the chances of a compromise on legislation to speed up permitting of energy projects.
“Eighty-five percent of the energy projects that want to get built are nonemitting,” said Peters. “Every day of the week, we should trade 15 [percent] to get back 85, and that’s what we should be talking about.”
“We have to act fast,” he continued, “and being purists and intransigent — if that’s where people are — is not going to help us.”
Frank Maisano, a senior principal at Bracewell who represents clients in the oil and gas industry as well as in wind and solar, said in Chicago that lame-duck passage was certainly possible.
He said the last-minute deal to insert the bipartisan Energy Act of 2020 into the December omnibus spending package of that year creates some precedent for a similar meeting of the minds four years later.
“I do think, if Trump wins and he has one or both houses, Democrats would be interested in looking to develop some sort of deal; it would be in their interest, because the deal would only get worse for them [under a Trump administration],” Maisano predicted. “We’re trying to get away from the political fight. We need to have a bipartisan approach.”
