{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sullivan-colleagues-urge-interior-secretary-to-withdraw-guidance-that-would-impede-energy-infrastructure-projects", "Sullivan, Colleagues Urge Interior Secretary to Withdraw Guidance That Would Impede Energy Infrastructure Projects", "2022-12-14", "2022", "2022-12", "Republican", "Senate", "AK", "Dan Sullivan", "S001198", "www.sullivan.senate.gov", "sullivan", "https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases?PageNum_rs=27", "scraper", "WASHINGTON\u2014U.S. Senators Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Angus King (I-Maine), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) this week sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland urging the Biden administration to withdraw recent draft guidance proposed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). The guidance puts onerous requirements on energy infrastructure projects before allowing them to take advantage of permitting benefits, such as a structured process for enhanced coordination with agencies, that are available to them under the law. The guidance also imposes additional cost and delay on job-creating energy projects.\n\n\u201cAffordable and abundant energy is critical to our national defense, to our economic future, and to the daily life of every American. One of the biggest barriers to building energy infrastructure is the red tape and bureaucracy that allows the permitting process for new energy projects to drag on for years,\u201d the senators wrote. \u201cThe recent proposed guidance by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management would put onerous requirements on the sponsors of infrastructure projects before allowing them to take advantage of permitting benefits\u2026 that are available to them under the law. This proposed guidance is flatly inconsistent with the law, and imposes additional cost and delay on energy projects that our country simply cannot afford. We urge the Department of the Interior to withdraw this proposed guidance and to take no additional action to make it final.\u201d\n\nSince arriving to the Senate, Senator Sullivan has made permitting reform a top priority, most recently by passing a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to reverse President Biden\u2019s updated NEPA regulations that delay American infrastructure and energy projects.\n\nTimeline of Senator Sullivan\u2019s efforts on permitting reform:\n\nMay 16, 2019 \u2013 Sullivan Introduces the Rebuild America Now (RAN) Act.\n\nJuly 15, 2020 \u2013 Sullivan Applauds Trump Admin. Modernizing NEPA Environmental Reviews, Incorporating Sullivan\u2019s Rebuild America Now Act.\n\nAugust 10, 2021 \u2013 Sullivan Ensures Permitting Reform Included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.\n\nNovember 2021 \u2013 The Federal Permitting Reform and Jobs Act to make FAST-41 (Title 41 of the 2015 Fixing America\u2019s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act) permanent, improve the federal permitting process for some of the largest infrastructure projects, and build on efforts to update this process created in 2015 is signed into law as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.\n\nJuly 13, 2022 \u2013 Sullivan Introduces S. J. Res. 55.\n\nAugust 2, 2022 \u2013 Sullivan Leads Press Conference on NEPA Reform.\n\nAugust 2, 2022 \u2013 Over 40 Organizations Support S.J Res. 55 and Hard-Working Americans.\n\nAugust 4, 2022 \u2013 Sullivan Leads Colleagues in Passing S.J. Res. 55 Overturning Onerous Biden NEPA Regulations.\n\nThe text of the letter can be found here and below.\n\nDear Secretary Haaland:\n\nAs sponsors and proponents of the FAST-41 permitting improvements, we write to express serious concern about recent draft guidance proposed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on October 24, 2022. This guidance puts onerous requirements on the sponsors of infrastructure projects before allowing them to take advantage of permitting benefits (such as a structured process for enhanced coordination with agencies) that are available to them under the law. As such, this proposed guidance is flatly inconsistent with the law. It also imposes additional cost and delay on energy projects that our country simply cannot afford. We urge you to withdraw this proposed guidance and to take no additional action to make it final.\n\nAffordable and abundant energy is critical to our national defense, to our economic future, and to the daily life of every American. One of the biggest barriers to building energy infrastructure is the red tape and bureaucracy that allows the permitting process for new energy projects to drag on for years.\n\nThe permitting improvements reflected in the FAST-41 legislation were the result of a bipartisan effort to improve and clarify/demystify the federal permitting process while retaining all environmental protections. To accomplish this, the legislation made several significant benefits available to our nation\u2019s most important infrastructure projects\u2014defined as \u201ccovered projects\u201d in the statute. Under FAST-41, covered projects are posted to a \u201cpermitting dashboard\u201d and the agencies involved are required to coordinate with the project sponsor and each other to timely develop and maintain a coordinated project plan and publicly posted \u201cpermitting timetable.\u201d If the agencies miss deadlines, they are required to explain why. The legislation also created a Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (\u201cthe Council\u201d), composed of representatives from 15 government agencies (including the Department of the Interior) and the Council Executive Director. This Council standardizes interagency consultation and coordination practices, resolves interagency conflicts, and reduces inefficiencies for covered projects. We enacted this legislation to ensure that complex \u201ccovered projects\u201d\u2014including renewable and conventional energy projects\u2014could easily obtain the early and ongoing coordination and transparency benefits that FAST-41 and the Council provides.\n\nThe recent draft guidance proposed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management flouts the law and undermines the very benefits that FAST-41 offers. Under the law, a project qualifies as a \u201ccovered project\u201d and is entitled to FAST-41 coverage if certain defined criteria are met. Additionally, the \u201cfinal and conclusive\u201d authority to determine whether these criteria are met is vested in the Executive Director of the Council, and the specific information that must be submitted by a project sponsor in support of this determination is defined by statute.\n\nIn spite of these clear statutory requirements, the proposed guidance by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management purports to require the completion of a \u201cchecklist\u201d where all responsibility for coordinating with regulatory agencies falls solely on project sponsors before the Bureau will \u201cconsider\u201d a project a FAST-41 \u201ccovered project.\u201d This checklist includes, for example, consultations with numerous different federal agencies and at least nine different studies, assessments, or reports. The guidance also requires project sponsors to identify and provide all federal, state, and local authorizations, approvals, consultations, or permits necessary to conduct the proposed activities and states that the applicant should meet with all agencies that must either permit or be consulted regarding the proposed action at least once. These very activities are captured by the FAST-41 process for covered projects and assigned to the facilitating or lead agency, and not the project sponsor. Within 60 days of FAST-41 coverage, the facilitating or lead agency is required to communicate with each coordinating and participating agency to develop the Coordinated Project Plan. This includes: a list of, and roles and responsibilities for, all entities with environmental review or authorization responsibility for the project; a permitting timetable; a discussion of potential avoidance, minimization, and mitigation strategies; and plans and a schedule for public and tribal outreach and coordination. The plan provides a formal coordination process to ensure all agencies\u2019 critical needs to timely complete FAST-41 requirements are addressed and documented in a singular place that can be relied upon for schedule and resource planning for all agencies involved in the environmental review and authorization process. The extra-statutory requirements imposed by this new guidance are an improper attempt to limit access to the FAST-41 process and its considerable efficiencies.\n\nThe recent draft guidance also appears to be an attempt to usurp the statutory authority of the Executive Director to make a final determination concerning whether a project qualifies as a \u201ccovered project.\u201d In a recent written decision, the Executive Director of the Council applied the text of FAST-41 to conclude that an offshore wind energy project qualified as a \u201ccovered project\u201d notwithstanding the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management\u2019s attempts to prevent coverage by imposing extra-statutory requirements. This determination was both correct as a matter of law and within the authority of the Executive Director to decide. Nevertheless, we are concerned the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is attempting, under the guise of new guidance, to circumvent this decision and undermine the authority of the Executive Director. This is improper and inconsistent with the statutory scheme.\n\nIn addition to being unlawful, this guidance is also poor policy. Although many of the required items on the \u201cchecklist\u201d would benefit from the interagency coordination and scheduling provisions provided by FAST-41, the guidance requires project sponsors to complete them before the Bureau will consider a project for coverage and coordination under the statute that would require the agency to perform these functions. The FAST-41 process enhances transparency for all involved entities through the development and maintenance of a Coordinated Project Plan and permitting timetable for covered projects identifying all relevant completion dates for agency action on any environmental review or authorization required for a covered project. The filings identified in this guidance can and should be identified, coordinated, and tracked according to the transparency and accountability mechanisms provided by FAST-41.\n\nWith families experiencing record energy costs, the United States government should make every effort to encourage and facilitate new energy infrastructure. The draft guidance promulgated by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management seems to take the opposite approach. It limits access to existing permitting transparency and efficiency measures while imposing even more red tape, cost, and delay on energy permitting. This is deeply concerning.\n\nIn light of these serious legal and policy concerns, we urge you to withdraw this proposed guidance and to take no additional action to make it final.\n\n# # #", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:41:06Z"]], "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://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sullivan-colleagues-urge-interior-secretary-to-withdraw-guidance-that-would-impede-energy-infrastructure-projects"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9274841286242008, "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"}