The White House keeps undermining an issue that could give way to a rare bipartisan win in Congress, according to a new report.
According to a Saturday article by Politico, permitting reform is an issue that “enjoys wide support” among Republicans and Democrats, but a bipartisan deal is threatened by Trump’s “crusade against renewable energy, particularly wind.”
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told Politico that “the administration continues jeopardizing” negotiations for permitting reform because of that crusade.
“The thing that is the biggest threat to permitting reform right now is that the Trump administration backslid into a series of stalled-out permits,” Heinrich said. “They’re permitting fossil fuel projects left and right, and they’re not moving solar, wind, and batteries.”
Democrats in the Senate Environment and Public Works committee cut negotiations short in December after the Trump administration put the kibosh on East Coast wind farms, according to Politico’s reporting.
Still, the GOP wants to move forward on permitting reform, not just for energy but for infrastructure and buildings as well, sources told Politico.
“We see this as a window of opportunity, given the need to be able to build things, the challenges we have for either transmission or energy production or building of anything,” Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), the chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus, told Politico.
Democrats are also seeing GOP support for permitting reform from Environment and Public Works Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee (R-UT), Politico added.
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