PERMITTING: Build America Caucus Chairs Call on Congress to Pass Senate Permitting Deal

Senate deal includes tech-neutral permitting certainty from Caucus’ bipartisan legislation

WASHINGTON – Today, Build America Caucus Chairs Josh Harder (CA-09) and Celeste Maloy (UT-02) released the following statement celebrating the Senate permitting reform deal and calling on Congress to quickly pass the reforms into law:

“The root cause of our energy affordability crisis is how hard we’ve made it to bring new energy online. It shouldn’t take longer to permit a project than to build it, but years of paperwork, delays, and red tape are tying down the energy we need and pushing prices to historic highs as a result. 

“Fixing that by making it easier to build all types of energy is exactly why the bipartisan Build America Caucus was founded. Today’s deal gives projects the certainty they need, creates enforcement mechanisms to hold agencies accountable, streamlines environmental review, and prioritizes building more transmission infrastructure. That will mean more completed projects, less reliance on foreign energy, and ultimately lower costs for our families.

“Now, Congress needs to make passing this deal priority number one in November. The Build America Caucus stands ready to get it across the finish line.” 

The bipartisan Build America Caucus has been the leading coalition working to build momentum for a permitting deal this Congress. In December, the Build America Caucus hosted a permitting roundtable with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and more than a dozen lawmakers to highlight the need for federal action on permitting reform. In February, Harder led members of the Build America Caucus in introducing landmark legislation to establish tech-neutral permitting certainty and build momentum for bipartisan negotiations.

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