Members of the House Freedom Caucus are objecting to House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman’s big permitting bill, contributing to a planned floor vote being postponed.
House Republican leaders were eyeing a vote next week on the “Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act,” H.R. 4776, from Westerman and Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine). The bill is now poised to come up the following week.
Westerman said the delay was “to get everything ready to go and to consider any amendments and stuff we need a little more time on.”
The House is still poised to take up some permitting and electric reliability legislation next week as lawmakers look to make progress on a broad, bipartisan deal this Congress.
Westerman has been hearing from Democrats who want changes to the National Environmental Policy Act but think the legislation goes too far. But conservatives are also chiming in.
One concern for the right is a bipartisan amendment added in committee meant to protect permits. It was in response to the administration’s attack on already-approved renewable energy projects, particularly offshore wind.
“We’re taking in — under advisement — whether [the legislation] goes far enough to free up all the constraints put on oil, gas and nuclear and whether it’s still promoting too much wind and solar which we think have the benefits of subsidies,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told POLITICO’s E&E News on Thursday.
“I don’t want to fast-track any of the wind and solar. It’s still not a neutral playing field because it’s subsidized,” said Roy, who pushed — unsuccessfully — for the immediate repeal of renewable energy credits in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
One reason many Democrats have joined the drive toward a permitting and grid deal is to cut red tape for renewable energy. But Republicans like Westerman have insisted on resource-neutral reforms. That may not satisfy the right.
“The last thing we need to do with offshore wind is to tie the administration’s hands in stopping that ridiculously expensive source of energy that enriches foreign companies with American taxpayer dollars,” said Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.). “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what the ‘SPEED Act’ would do.”
Roy and Harris’ objections come as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) tries to appease an increasingly splintered GOP conference and hangs on to a very slight majority.
Already, six months ago, conservatives like Roy threatened to blow up President Donald Trump’s signature legislation over moderates’ efforts to ease the end of clean energy credits. They stood down after Trump assured them his administration would end subsidies as soon as it could.
Now, that aggressive sentiment stands to influence talks around permitting reform, a complicated issue that lawmakers have been negotiating for years.
Democratic demands
On the flip side, Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and about 30 House Democrats sent a letter to Westerman on Wednesday with specific demands “so that even more Democrats can support the bill.”
One of their requests involves strengthening the “permit certainty” language that concerns the right, as well as other changes to boost public input and ensure the courts could block projects over faulty environmental reviews.
“Our north star is ensuring that any final bill makes the permitting process more efficient, reduces costs for our constituents, and increases certainty for American investment,” the Democrats wrote.
Peters said on Thursday that “a number of components are going to have to come together to do a big permitting deal.”
“The ‘SPEED Act’ is one of them,” Peters added. “I actually think it’s good we are now going to pass something out of the House, even though I think it’s not finished.”
As lawmakers discuss protecting permits, solar companies are complaining that the Interior Department has failed to permit projects.
“While the solar industry values the continued bipartisan engagement on permitting reform, the SPEED Act, as passed out of committee, falls short of addressing this core problem: the ongoing permitting moratorium,” Solar Energy Industries Association CEO Abigail Ross Hopper said in a statement.
In the Senate
Senators say they are having “constant conversations,” according to Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah), a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. “But none of them have produced a final product.”
Curtis acknowledged there was talk of a draft weeks ago, but the fine print — like on transmission language — has slowed them down.
Democrats have long pushed for provisions to make it easier to build out the grid, in part to satisfy blue state climate goals. Republicans, generally, have objected to the idea that red state ratepayers get stuck with the bill.
Curtis said lawmakers want to do something on transmission, but “what exactly is that? I think that’s an area that’s having a hard time coming together. I don’t think there’s actually consensus in the utility industry, and that’s a problem.”
Any package would need about seven Senate Democrats. They have been holding their cards close to the chest.
“I think we’re still looking at having something we can circulate outside of the core four so that committee members and others can have a chance to weigh in,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee.
“I think the staff are in fairly constant engagement across the four, and it’s a long way from having a detailed bill but we’re driving through green lights so far,” Whitehouse said, referring to the leaders of the EPW and Energy and Natural Resources panels.
Asked if he was talking to House members, he said, “Not particularly.”
Whitehouse said he had not read the “SPEED Act.”
Reporter Andres Picon contributed.
