Hickenlooper’s permitting reform bills would build on this progress toward energy independence
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper celebrated the Department of Energy’s (DOE) rule to streamline the environmental review and permitting process for new clean energy and transmission projects. The rule establishes a new program that cuts bureaucratic red tape by allowing DOE to coordinate the environmental review process for all federal agencies, reducing excessive and uncoordinated reviews for new transmission projects. It also simplifies reviews for low-impact solar and storage projects, ensuring we can rapidly roll out new clean energy projects.
DOE’s rule change parallels and complements permitting reforms Hickenlooper has called for in his SPEED & Reliability Act and BIG WIRES Act.
“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and Inflation Reduction Act invested billions in our clean energy future, only for new projects to get bogged down by our outdated grid,” said Hickenlooper. “DOE’s new rule is a critical start, but Congress should finish the job and pass comprehensive permitting reform.”
Hickenlooper sits on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has made permitting reform a priority. Hickenlooper recently introduced two bills to build on the committee’s work and address comprehensive permitting reform. The first, Hickenlooper’s SPEED & Reliability Act, would reduce duplicative environmental reviews for national interest transmission lines and allow state and federal reviews to happen simultaneously. The second, Hickenlooper’s BIG WIRES Act, streamlines the country’s patchwork energy transmission system by directing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to better coordinate construction of an interregional transmission system.
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