A Senate Democrat key to a bipartisan permitting accord Wednesday decried the Trump administration’s sustained attacks against wind and solar power as “gangster ‘Gong Show’ stuff” that was destroying any glimmer of trust on Capitol Hill.
The outburst from Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse comes at a time when Republicans have been talking about wooing Democrats on a permitting deal and behind-the-scenes discussions have been ongoing.
But Whitehouse seemed to throw cold water on such talks, absent assurances from the White House that they would honor mandates passed by Congress. He even threatened to oppose typical bipartisan bills dealing with water infrastructure and surface transportation.
“Why would we want to do bipartisan permitting reform during an administration that won’t faithfully execute that law?” Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said during a hearing.
He called out Republicans, asking them to buck President Donald Trump.“Where are my Senate Republican colleagues?” he asked.
“The Republican Party has long claimed to be the party of free market capitalism, yet you seem fine with this level of government interference in free enterprise.”
Whitehouse specifically pointed to the Interior Department’s orders to stop work at Revolution Wind, the Energy Department’s kill list of projects in many blue states and the rescinded approval for what would have been the nation’s largest solar project in Nevada.
“This is kind of bureaucratic, Al Capone-quality stuff, so it’s very hard to find a glimmer of good faith.”
After the hearing, he suggested he would need to see “personnel changes” at the White House, saying that “some people are just too horrible to be trusted, ever.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Leaders are talking
This is not the first time Whitehouse has used his perch on EPW to declare that Trump’s aggressive actions would turn off Democrats.
Still, in recent months, he says he has engaged in behind-the-scenes permitting talks with Republicans, including EPW chair Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah). It’s not clear when they last met.
Those leaders have been discussing the broad contours of a deal to speed up and simplify environmental review for projects of all kinds. Lawmakers in both parties say they want to overhaul the lengthy federal process, though many obstacles remain.
Capito didn’t seem concerned with Whitehouse’s outburst. When asked if he has told her he’s close to breaking off talks, she said he’s “indicated the opposite.”
“He keeps making that point, and I keep making the point back to him, that the way to solve these issues … is to do solid permitting reform,” Capito said.
In fact, at a recent event hosted by the American Petroleum Institute, Capito said she wants to attract as many as 15 to 20 Democrats on a bipartisan bill.
At that same event, however, Trump Interior Secretary Doug Burgum doubled down on the administration’s scorn for offshore wind projects — throwing cold water on the makings of a deal suggested by Whitehouse himself that could include wind permits to get Democratic buy-in.
“I hadn’t thought of the idea of trading something that makes sense for everybody in America for something that makes no sense, and that’s sort of how I view offshore wind,” Burgum said Monday.
Lee a wild card
Exactly how a big package garnering support from that many Democrats gets the blessing of Lee, an arch-conservative typically hostile to big legislative packages, remains to be seen.
Still, this week at the National Center for Energy Analytics, Lee said he was part of a small group of Republicans and Democrats working on the issue. He emphasized the need for “aggressive” regulatory reform that amends judicial review, including restricting those who have standing to sue over permitted projects.
“I think we’ve gotten loose with what we allow in terms of people who don’t have true Article III standing,” he said, referring to the requirement that the plaintiff must have a personal stake in a federal lawsuit.
“It’s like the courts have looked the other way in allowing people to assert standing who don’t actually have it under Article III,” the section of the Constitution establishing the federal judiciary. In theory, that change could restrict environmental groups from suing fossil fuel companies on behalf of communities.
Lee said a bipartisan package pushed last year by then-ENR Chair Joe Manchin (I-W.Va,) and then-ranking member John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) “sort of serves as the foundational building block of what we’re working on right now.”
That failed legislation included a mix of oil, gas and coal benefits as well as changes to facilitate transmission line build-out.
“There will be changes to it in part because some of those things have been rendered obsolete, or the ground has shifted since then,” Lee said. “Some of the provisions that were inserted into the One Big Beautiful Bill Act augmented that so there will need to be a few adjustments made to reflect the changed circumstances.”
The Manchin-Barrasso bill — which sailed out of ENR last year with Lee voting for it — ran into problems with the House, where Republicans have long been wary of cost and siting concerns for new transmission lines built to draw more renewable power.
Lee’s comments, while largely predictable, were notable because they demonstrated his concerted effort to work in a bipartisan fashion — something observers have questioned.
Still, at least one Democratic senator involved in discussions stressed Democrats had already moved to the center on environmental policy — and sought to put the onus on Republicans.
“I think we’ve seen Democrats stretch a fair amount in this space,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “What remains to be seen is whether Republicans can recognize that if we’re going to enact permitting reform that’s durable, it has to satisfy both sides of the aisle. And right now, they are just having too much fun getting whatever they want without talking to us. But at some point they are going to realize that they need us, and that’s when conversations will get real.”
Reporter Hannah Northey contributed.
