Industry Insiders Urge Congress For Deregulation As Midterm Deadline Looms

Energy companies are sounding the alarm on stagnant deregulatory policy as lawmakers pivot to midterm electioneering and vital infrastructure remains unbuilt.

Several leaders in the energy sector told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Congress needs to address the “urgent” need for Congress to enact permitting reform, as the U.S. energy landscape has shifted while the permitting process has remained largely unchanged. After years of little change, America’s energy demand is climbing, though industry leaders told the DCNF that red tape and litigation risk are bogging down construction projects.

“As a small manufacturer in the heartland of America, Husco greatly appreciated the tireless work of Congress and the Trump administration to preserve and expand pro-growth tax policies,” Austin Ramirez, the president and CEO of Husco, an auto parts manufacturer, told the DCNF. “To fully capitalize on the historic investments of the tax law passed this year, Congress must act urgently to pass commonsense permitting reforms that will make it possible for manufacturers in America of all sizes to grow operations, modernize infrastructure, shore up supply chains, create jobs and advance American energy dominance. Now is the time to seize the opportunity and put a stop to the endless litigation driving up costs.”

Congress is moving some permitting reform legislation along — including the SPEED Act and the PERMIT Act. While the energy sector generally supports these deregulatory measures, some industry leaders and experts told the DCNF that more comprehensive reform is necessary to unleash American energy.

In the wake of electrification, data center proliferation and onshore manufacturing driving up electricity demand as well as aging energy infrastructure and harsh mandates forcing the early retirement of reliable power, industry insiders argue that the American energy sector urgently needs effective permitting reform to help avert grid stress.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF that she is “concerned” that Congress will not accomplish enough on the permitting reform front before the midterms, though “sometimes Congress surprises me.”

“This is a non-partisan issue,” Furchtgott-Roth told the DCNF. “Everyone wants to do it, but the Democrats want to do it so that they can have more wind and solar, and the Republicans want to do it so that they can have more oil and natural gas.”

Affordability is set to be a major issue during the midterm election cycle, after Democrats saw several victories in New York, Virginia and New Jersey after campaigning on cost of living. Some prominent Democratic and Republican officials argue that their preferred energy resources are best for affordability. Democratic Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse claimed in a Thursday X post that renewable energy will lower costs for consumers. Many GOP leaders conversely maintain that fossil fuels are a uniquely reliable and affordable resource.

Permitting reform is key to “affordability, reliability, national security and technological development,” according to TC Energy’s Vice President of External Relations, Alex Oehler. “We’ve got this huge energy demand, [and] … it is an urgent issue.”

Oehler argued that while America faces pressing energy infrastructure challenges, they are not insurmountable.

“One of the great things is we feel like we have the solutions, and we’re blessed to live in this country with abundant energy resources,” Oehler told the DCNF. “We have a lot of infrastructure developers that are very practiced in designing and building infrastructure in a way that protects the environment.”

While some environmental regulations like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) began with good intentions, they “have grown in length and complexity, and the time that it takes for them to be completed,” according to Oehler.

Oehler and John Dabbar, executive director of the National Petroleum Council, stressed the importance of their organization’s joint report, which highlights the “urgent” need for permitting reform and recommends Congress clarify environmental review laws.

The report, titled “Bottleneck to Breakthrough: A Permitting Blueprint to Build,” advises Congress to “explore and adopt a new permitting framework that shifts qualified infrastructure activities from project-specific, process-heavy reviews to standardized, expedient approvals.”

Oehler added that “we need clarity in the permitting process, and that’s one of the things that the report tried to stress,” noting that energy companies need predictable timelines for authorizations.

“People of both parties recognize the need to build more energy infrastructure to help deliver these solutions to the American people,” Oehler said. “The process has become unruly, and we need to fix that process.”