Republicans Missed Big In House Hearing On American Energy

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle shared frustration over the nation’s archaic permitting process Wednesday at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on energy and minerals.

Republicans criticized the existing process under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), claiming it impedes oil and gas production, while Democrats claimed the regulatory regime blocks wind and solar projects. Everyone, seemed frustrated by the regulatory regime’s impediment to producing critical minerals for all of the above.

“I welcome my Republican colleagues interested in permitting reform,” Debbie Dingell (Michigan Democrat), whose husband was the one who wrote the Magna Carta in environmental law in 1960s, stated that she is a proud Michigan Democrat. “We need an honest conversation about permitting and the implementation of NEPA in the 21st century…We can accelerate deployment by becoming much more efficient and predictable [with] clear timelines.”

Current timelines jeopardized America is left behind by foreign adversaries in the development of natural resources. Meanwhile, domestic businesses are left with headaches over pending approvals. This could threaten national security. Minnesota Rep. Pete Stauber’s district contains vast copper- and cobalt deposits Take off Biden administration, which extracted the coal last month; complained that companies looking to mine in his state had waited for decades for permits.

“In the Duluth complex in northern Minnesota, the biggest copper and nickel find in the world, which Joe Biden just banned mining in my district, there’s a company in its 20th year of permitting and then there’s another one within 9 years of permitting process,” Stauber said. “It’s just unfortunate, especially if we want to hold ourselves to the highest environmental and labor standards, we mine in America.”

However, the status quo is a benefit to liberal lawmakers who are allies with left-wing causes. Republicans did not say anything about it.

The Biden administration took office last summer reintroduced “sue and settle” Trump halts all practices. This refers to lefty environmental organizations that ally themselves with the government on an issue and present a legal challenge against a project. In turn, they voluntarily settle. Under the protection of the courts, the preferred policy outcome is implemented and liberal interest groups make a handsome profit from the taxpayer.

“It takes 16 years now to permit a new mine,” The Federalist was informed by Rick Whitbeck, the Alaska director of Power the Future. “Part of the process — at least from the environmental activists — is to ‘litigate and make them wait,’ where they continuously file legal motions, find a friendly judge, and delay the permitting process.”

In July, President Joe Biden’s Department of the Interior took an axe to her predecessor’s order and sanitized The agency website displaying settlements and consent decrees.

This move will reintroduce a key feature of the Beltway swamp activity that brought President Donald Trump to the White House six year ago. However, lawmakers remained silent about the reintroduction. “sue and settle” Even though industry leaders keep complaining that environmental litigation is not being done, there are still cases.