July 23, 2024
Arlington, Va.— NEMA President and CEO Debra Phillips today issued the following statement after Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Joe Manchin (I-WV) and Ranking Member John Barrasso (R-WY) introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 to speed up transmission development and accelerate electrification across the United States:
“NEMA and our members are pleased to see this much-needed and bipartisan effort to reform the complex and burdensome federal permitting process. NEMA has consistently advocated for streamlined and expedited federal permitting processes to unlock our domestic resources, deliver reliable electricity capacity, and achieve our nation’s electrification goals.
“A thorough yet streamlined permitting process is critical to meet our nation’s current electrification needs but also our future energy demands, regardless of generation source. As NEMA members scale manufacturing capacity to deliver the various components and systems needed to enhance the grid, this legislation to update permitting rules and modernize transmission planning provides better business certainty and is good news for energy reliability, resiliency, and economic growth.
“We are also encouraged that the bill rightly requires transmission planners to consider the use of existing rights-of-way in transmission planning. We applaud Senators Manchin and Barrasso for their leadership to help our nation meet its electrification goals. We look forward to working with Congress and leaders on both sides of the aisle to advance this legislation and streamline permitting development and approvals.”
Additional Background:
Rights-of-way allow developers to use existing brownfields which have already undergone environmental assessments and issued impact statements, significantly reducing the length of the permitting process. To that end, NEMA recently submitted recommendations through the Rail Electrification Council to the U.S. Department of Energy on how rights-of-way designations and processes can be enhanced.
This bipartisan legislation aligns with that effort to increase capacity between interconnections and further electrification efforts in the United States.