A bipartisan effort to speed federal permits for energy and infrastructure projects is close to an agreement in the Senate, and the White House is pressing Democrats to accept what it calls a gesture of goodwill, according to reports on the negotiations.
Supporters say faster permitting would unlock oil and gas projects long delayed by environmental review — and, just as importantly for many Democrats, the transmission lines needed to carry wind and solar power from rural generation sites to cities. Both industries have lobbied for reform for years, through administrations of both parties.
Negotiators on both sides say the structure of a deal exists. What remains, according to the reports, is final legislative text and an agreed path to a successful vote — no small matters with the midterm elections weeks away and floor time scarce.
The administration’s offer would cover only a portion of the projects stalled during the current term, and some developers have already withdrawn offshore wind investments in the face of official opposition, according to reports. That history is one reason Democrats are weighing the offer carefully rather than accepting it quickly.
Permitting reform has eluded Congress for a decade because it forces a trade every faction dislikes. Whether this attempt succeeds will be visible within days: either text appears and a vote is scheduled, or the effort joins the long list of near-deals that dissolved at the finish line.
The offer’s partial character is where the negotiation will actually be decided. A package that speeds permits for a portion of stalled projects asks Democrats to bank goodwill against a promise, while developers who already withdrew investments in the face of official opposition supply the counterargument in cancelled capital. Transmission’s champions, meanwhile, must weigh a decade of failure against a half-loaf whose lines could still move the generation their states have already built.
What the Senate produces in the next days will be legible as a verdict on something larger than permits: whether bipartisan legislating of the industrial kind — pipelines and transmission towers — remains possible in a Congress that mostly performs. The electrons, as the industry keeps reminding everyone, are not waiting for an answer.
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