Time Is Running Out For U.S. Pipeline Permitting Reform

As Connecting the Dots has reported throughout the fall, U.S. lawmakers soon could consider legislation that includes a set of reforms to federal permitting rules for energy infrastructure projects. Unfortunately, according to MSCI’s partners at the Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance (EEIA), the prospects for passage of that bill are waning.

The legislation, as outlined by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), is running into resistance from U.S. Senate Republicans. The industrial metals industry and other stakeholders support this legislation. That’s because Sen. Manchin’s proposed reforms would remove roadblocks to pipeline permitting by imposing time limits for environmental and water crossing permit reviews, limiting the time window for legal challenges, and requiring any challenges to be heard in federal courts that have been friendlier to permit applicants.

The bill also would approved the now-blocked Mountain Valley Pipeline, allowing more natural gas to be produced and shipped out of the Appalachian Basin. Reforms would also apply to power transmission infrastructure permits.

The EEIA has urged Senate Republicans to support the reforms since they are critical to increasing the energy infrastructure industry’s ability to ensure U.S. energy reliability, affordability, and independence and to add to the country’s capacity to support European allies’ efforts to end their reliance on Russian energy exports.

If you would like to write to your senator to ask that they support this important legislation, information to contact them is here.

The EEIA has provided the following points to guide correspondence. Constituents should:

• Respectfully ask that their senator support permitting reforms proposed by Sen. Manchin in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2022, and their enactment before the end of the 117th Congress.
• Note these reforms are urgent and critical to empowering the energy infrastructure industry’s ability to build facilities, including pipelines and power transmission systems, that underpin U.S. energy reliability, affordability, and independence.
• Urge senators not to let short-term political considerations stand in the way of desperately needed long-term reforms to a badly broken infrastructure permitting system, which every day is costing Americans countless lost jobs, risking electrical grid reliability, adding to energy cost inflation, increasing U.S. reliance on energy imports, and endangering U.S. national security.

Find more information on EEIA’s website.