A bipartisan Senate duo is teaming up on legislation Tuesday to limit a president’s power to cancel or slow-walk approvals for all forms of energy projects, hoping to resolve a major hangup in permitting reform talks between Republicans and Democrats.
Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) — both members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee — are introducing the “FREEDOM Act,” shared first with POLITICO, that would prevent federal agencies from revoking permits, issuing stop-work orders or halting construction on fully permitted projects that do not meet a narrow set of “extreme” circumstances, while limiting lengthy lawsuits that stall their completion.
The technology-neutral bill, which covers both fully permitted projects and projects still in the pipeline, seeks to address various avenues that President Donald Trump has repeatedly used to attack solar and wind projects.
These include his moves to halt five near-complete offshore wind farms along the Eastern Seaboard using so-called stop-work orders — which were overturned in court — and enhanced scrutiny applied by his agencies of solar and wind projects.
