FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Outlines Priorities for Building America’s Energy Infrastructure Faster, Safer, and Cleaner [press release]
President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is making a once-in-a-generation investment in America’s infrastructure and our clean energy future that is creating good-paying union jobs, growing our economy, building energy security, combating climate change, advancing environmental justice, and helping lower costs for families. To continue to drive these efforts, the Biden-Harris Administration today announced a set of priorities it urges Congress to pass as part of bipartisan permitting reform legislation. . . .
Administration Objectives for Permitting Reform
The Biden-Harris Administration supports the important reforms contained in the Building American Energy Security Act of 2023 as the kind of bipartisan compromise needed to tackle this challenge. The Administration encourages the inclusion of the following priorities in any bipartisan permitting reform package:
Accelerate Deployment of Critical Electric Transmission. In order to support the deployment of new clean energy generation, the country needs to expand transmission capacity to move electric power, both onshore and offshore. Congress should:
-- Expedite the connection of interstate and offshore electric transmission lines by providing for electric transmission siting and cost allocation.
-- Reform the transmission interconnection queue so that new generation projects are not stuck in line waiting for approval for over four years.
-- Develop regional electricity transfer requirements that would set a minimum level of transfer capabilities between regions to avoid events like the 2021 Texas freeze, which was a humanitarian and economic crisis.
-- Require the consideration of multiple benefits and burdens during interregional transmission planning, including economic, reliability, operational, environmental, and climate impacts.
-- Direct the use of existing authorities to accelerate deployment of grid enhancing technologies and transmission line upgrades that could enable more than double the amount of new renewables that are able to be integrated into the existing grid infrastructure.
-- Improve transmission financing by clarifying the Secretary of Energy is able to to make loans for transmission outside of designated transmission corridors, if it is deemed to be in the national interest.
Accelerate Energy Project Permitting on Federal Lands. The Energy Act of 2020 directed the Department of the Interior to permit 25 gigawatts of renewable energy on departmentally managed lands by 2025. . . .
Modernize America’s 150-Year-Old Mining Laws and Responsibly Develop Domestic Critical Minerals. To meet the nation’s climate, infrastructure, and global competitiveness goals, the U.S. must expand and accelerate responsible domestic production of critical minerals in a manner that upholds strong environmental, labor, safety, Tribal consultation, and community engagement standards. . . .
Deploy Hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide Infrastructure. Congress should address the siting of hydrogen and carbon dioxide pipelines and storage infrastructure and provide federal siting authority for such infrastructure. . . .
Incentivize Redevelopment for Clean Energy Deployment. Siting clean energy facilities on formerly contaminated sites, old mining sites, and closed landfills, and reducing threats presented at those sites, can meaningfully contribute to clean energy production, while also creating jobs and improving environmental conditions for nearby communities. . . .
Recommendations to Streamline the Permitting Process
Improve Permitting Efficiency and Predictability. To build infrastructure expediently and responsibly, the necessary reviews, permits and approvals need to be robust, be completed within a predictable timeframe, and result in prompt and legally defensible decisions. . . . In making these reforms, Congress should:
-- Create a programmatic review fund to provide the resources to execute more programmatic reviews – which can allow environmental review work to be re-used for multiple projects – by authorizing agencies to impose a fee on project sponsors to cover costs associated with a programmatic review upon which their project relies.
-- Support long term programmatic review use to clarify that the analysis may be relied upon for five years, unless there are new circumstances and, that a programmatic review’s analysis should be able to be relied upon after five years so long as the agency reevaluates the analysis and finds that it continues to sufficiently analyze the project’s effects.
-- Expand responsible use of administrative categorical exclusions. Congress should require Federal agencies to examine and propose the use of categorical exclusions for clean energy projects where feasible. . . .
Enhance Data Collection Needed for Effective Permitting. Coordinated review and permitting among federal agencies requires not only a collaborative approach but also data collection and sharing between agencies. Today, many agencies are using antiquated IT systems, and some even continue to rely on paper systems. Congress should provide resources to:
-- Develop an automated, joint electronic permit application for federal agencies.
-- Create updated maps to help identify locations for project development . . . .
-- Establish clear information submission deadlines for all project developers to submit data required for federal agency reviews and decision-making.
-- Develop automated workflow tools that are compatible with existing agency dashboards to transcend organizational boundaries and track project progress from start to finish. . . .
-- Create a permitting technology steering group to develop digital tools to facilitate environmental review and permitting processes across the Federal government, reducing duplication and increasing transparency, efficiency, and positive environmental, cultural, and community outcomes.
Cut Duplicative and Burdensome Analysis and Reviews. Often environmental reviews and permitting processes need to be conducted sequentially, which can result in unnecessary delay and revisiting of decisions. Congress should address several areas where overlap occurs, including:
-- Expediting transmission projects in designated transmission corridors by allowing projects to rely on the analysis included in corridor-wide programmatic environmental reviews without the need to re-analyze resources and impacts that have already been examined.
-- Reforming the hydropower licensing process, including by recognizing Tribal authority over facilities on Tribal land, improving engagement with States, Tribes, and stakeholders, and shortening timelines for licensing decisions to allow well-operated hydropower facilities including pumped storage to function and, where appropriate, removing non-operational facilities.
Improve Community Engagement. Agencies must facilitate meaningful engagement with local communities in environmental review and permitting processes. Early community engagement helps to identify and avoid conflicts, enhance public buy-in, and avoid surprises late in permitting processes that can disrupt timelines. Congress should:
-- Require agencies to identify a Chief Community Engagement Officer to oversee community engagement in permitting processes across the agency.
-- Establish a community engagement fund at each agency that agencies can draw from to provide community capacity grants to local governments, Tribes, or community groups to enhance capacity to engage on specific Federal actions that may affect them. . . .
-- Direct the creation of a national map that would identify the location of each proposed Federal action that is being analyzed through an Environmental Impact Statement, to enable the public to more easily identify actions that may affect them.
Allow agencies to transfer funds to Tribal Nations to enhance capacity to engage in National Historic Preservation Act consultations and to conduct cultural resource inventories.
Address Gaps in the Permitting Workforce. While recent legislation has provided financial resources to federal agencies for permitting activities, Congress should continue efforts to ensure that the federal government has a sufficient workforce and sufficient resources to conduct needed project reviews and evaluate permits. This includes:
-- Authorizing development, recruitment and retention of workers to conduct technical and scientific assessments, digital mapping and data management, and the review and processing of permits.
-- Provide federal agencies with flexible hiring authorities for permitting and environmental review.
-- Standardize the collection of fees to sufficiently fund permit program administration costs to provide agencies with resources to hire more permit writers, develop tools to oversee and track the timely and synchronized permit issuance within the environmental review process, engage more effectively with communities and pay for the operation and maintenance of electronic permitting platforms.
Establish Clearer Requirements for Mitigating Environmental Harms. Congress should direct agencies to use their authority to require mitigation efforts, and make clear those efforts are able to satisfy environmental review requirements. This will enhance efficiency and improve certainty for project sponsors while producing better environmental outcomes, protecting public health, and advancing environmental justice.
Incentivize State and Local Permitting Reform and Standardization. State and local governments across the country employ an inconsistent patchwork of processes and requirements to implement Federally-funded projects. . . .
Accelerating Administration Permitting Actions to Deliver Results
The Biden-Harris Administration is not waiting on Congressional action to accelerate permitting. . . . Some examples include:
-- Transmission: Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing the completion of a new interagency Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate the timely, responsible, and equitable permitting of electric transmission infrastructure. This will accelerate the permitting of transmission lines by directing the Department of Energy to use existing authority under the Federal Power Act to coordinate onshore transmission planning and permitting activities across the federal government. . . .
-- Renewable Energy on Public Land: The Administration is on track to achieve the goal of permitting at least 25 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy on public lands by 2025, with a five-agency collaboration to expedite these reviews. . . .
-- Modernizing and Accelerating Environmental Reviews: The Biden-Harris Administration has clarified and restored basic safeguards for environmental reviews and issued guidance to agencies on how to account for climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, so fewer projects get tangled up in litigation and more projects get built right the first time. . . .
-- Offshore Wind: The Administration has also developed an ambitious target for offshore wind, with a goal to deploy 30 gigawatts by 2030. . . .
John Podesta on the Biden-Harris Administration’s Priorities for Energy Infrastructure Permitting Reform:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/05/10/remarks-as-prepared-for-delivery-by-senior-advisor-john-podesta-on-the-biden-harris-administrations-priorities-for-energy-infrastructure-permitting-reform/
Fact sheet:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/10/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-outlines-priorities-for-building-americas-energy-infrastructure-faster-safer-and-cleaner/