Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker said Wednesday he’s intervened to get the Pentagon to stop stalling on wind project permits, a situation Democrats have said is a major barrier to reaching an elusive broad permitting reform deal with Republicans.
Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, made the comments at an unrelated Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, where ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) used his opening statement to rail against the Department of Defense’s failure to complete standard national security reviews for more than 100 wind projects across the nation.
“I don’t think that there’s a good-faith effort at the Department of Defense to sort out where there may be a national security issue and where there clearly is not,” Whitehouse said, adding that while negotiations on permitting “continue to move forward,” the Pentagon’s blockade “has to stop” in order for talks to succeed.
Wicker then interjected to say, “I join you in that statement and would inform my friend that I’m working to get some resolution to the problem.”
