A new piece of energy legislation in Congress called the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (EPRA) has made its way through the committee process and will soon hit the Senate floor. The bipartisan bill, sponsored by Senator Manchin (D-WV) and Senator Barrasso (R-WY), aims to speed up the approval process for new energy projects. It recently passed the Senate Energy Committee in a strong 15-4 vote.
There has been a big push at the federal level to decrease carbon emissions and transition out of fossil fuels. This has resulted in new, innovative projects like the Terrapower nuclear plant in Wyoming. This legislation hopes to encourage these endeavors and remove certain restrictions and timelines that needlessly slow down the process of introducing new energy plants and projects.
Senator Barrasso said about the bill:
“Our bipartisan bill secures future access to oil and gas resources on federal lands and waters. We fix the disastrous Rosemont decision so that we can produce more American minerals instead of relying on China. We permanently end President Biden’s reckless ban on natural gas exports. And we ensure we can strengthen our electric grid while protecting customers. This legislation is an urgent and important first step towards improving our nation’s broken permitting process.”
The bill originally didn’t have any provisions for hydropower, but Senator Murkowski (R-AK) worked to change that. It now gives more power to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to approve, deny, and extend projects. In collaboration with other departments such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and USDA’s U.S. Forest Service, FERC can approve extensions for projects that were originally on an 8-year timeline to be completed on a 12-year timeline. This gives developers breathing room to be able to cast a bigger vision for projects that don’t have to fit into an 8-year construction process.
EPRA drastically reforms the judicial review process. It changes the deadline for developers to file a lawsuit against an agency for denying their project from 6 years to 150 days. While controversial, this keeps projects out of limbo and provides a tighter deadline and clarity for developers to know whether or not they can proceed with their energy developments. In a similar vein, under ERPA agencies must act on remands of projects within 180 days. Currently, there isn’t a deadline at all causing the process to be dragged out unnecessarily.
A big attraction of EPRA is that it aims to not show bias to a certain energy source. In section 210, it explains that for the Secretary of the Interior to approve a solar or wind project on federal land, at least half of the land or 2,000 acres must have been offered for oil and gas leasing in the previous year. This ensures that intermittent energy sources don’t get approved purely because some view them as “clean.”
Gas and oil continue to have a seat at the table, and ERPA in some ways codifies that. But, EPRA also has a section that creates a goal for renewable energy. It changes the goal of the DOI from 25 gigawatts to 50 gigawatts. It proposes to streamline and make the process of renewables in every stage shorter including the applications, issue of intent, cost recovery agreement, and right of way.
Other highlights include changing the definition of “mill site” to allow miners to have mill sites on their work site to increase efficiency. It also shortens the process for transmission projects that are in America’s interest by cutting out a stage that usually lasts between 2-5 years designating National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors based on lengthy “needs” assessments. The bill focuses on geothermal projects as well and attempts to cut as much red tape as possible to speed up the process and projects.
The ERPA bill casts a wide net in reforming energy policy. It changes procedures for judicial review, mining, liquified natural gas, geothermal and hydroelectric power, drilling, and federal land lease programs. Some of the attempts to cut red tape gives more power to agencies such as FERC to make the final and only call on approval or denial of major projects in some cases. Overall, this legislation lessens the burden for developers to innovate and deliver high-quality energy to our nation’s grid. Construction of new transmission lines has dropped since 2010, from averaging around 1,700 miles of new high voltage transmission to now just 55 miles recently reported in 2023.
Congress needs to urgently address our energy crises as we are feeling the effects of attempting to rely on intermittent power sources during times of extreme weather events. Streamlining the inefficient permitting process to allow innovation and creating new reliable energy projects is a great place to start.