{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415208", "Utility Dive article on Harris-Smith-Van Drew SPEED Act amendment'House passes permitting reform bill with anti-offshore wind amendment'", "2025-12-19", "2025", "2025-12", "Republican", "House", "NJ", "Christopher H. Smith", "S000522", "chrissmith.house.gov", "chrissmith", "https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentquery.aspx", "scraper", "By Diana DiGangi\n\nPublished December 19, 2025\n\nThe U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed permitting reform legislation, the SPEED Act, with an amendment that prevents the bill from applying to offshore wind projects.\n\nThe SPEED Act would amend the National Environmental Policy Act to ease and speed the permitting of energy projects. It introduces new deadlines for opposition to projects \u2013 opponents would have to make a claim against a project no later than 150 days after final agency action is made public, for instance.\n\nIt also mandates that \u201cnot later than 30 days after completing an environmental impact statement or an environmental assessment for the proposed agency action, the lead agency, and any cooperating agency, shall issue a final agency action.\u201d\n\nGetty Images\n\nThe offshore wind carveout applies to \u201cthe issuance, modification, approval, or administration of any lease, easement, right-of-way, site assessment plan, construction and operations plan, or any other authorization for an offshore wind energy project,\u201d the amendment says.\n\nThe amendment was proposed by two New Jersey representatives, Reps. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., along with Maryland\u2019s lone Republican representative, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md.\n\nSmith said in a Thursday release that the amendment was \u201cabsolutely critical for preserving the Trump administration\u2019s ability to continue its much-need reviews of ocean wind projects off of the Atlantic Coast due to overwhelming safety and national defense concerns.\u201d\n\nHe said that the amendment was designed to avoid nullifying the Trump administration\u2019s actions against offshore wind, including a halt on offshore wind permitting which a federal judge struck down as illegal in a Dec. 8 ruling.\n\nIn his own release, Harris said he \u201cwas engaged in deliberations with the House Natural Resources Committee for months to ensure the inclusion of this language, guided by a single principle: my constituents in Ocean City and communities across the Atlantic Coastline are not for sale.\u201d\n\nThe Oceantic Network said in a Thursday release that the group is \u201cdisappointed in the late inclusion of an amendment which is discriminatory toward renewable energy\u201d and urged the Senate to \u201crestore the heart of bipartisan permitting reform\u201d when it takes up the bill.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=415208"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8690599352121353, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}