Congress Fails to Reach Deal on Permitting Reform

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) walks out of the Senate Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 22, 2024. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A bipartisan permitting reform measure spearheaded by retiring Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) as a capstone to his career as a moderate Senate dealmaker will not advance in the House before the lame-duck session of Congress adjourns for the year.

Manchin’s proposed Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, co-sponsored with Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), will not be incorporated into a stopgap continuing resolution funding bill that Congress must pass by Dec. 20 to avert a government shutdown, assuring it won’t be heard on the House floor in the waning days of the session.

With Manchin retiring and Barrasso set to assume the role of Senate majority whip—the GOP’s No. 2 floor leader—both saw the Energy Permitting Reform Act as a key to their legacies as chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee over the past two years.

The proposed Energy Permitting Reform Act streamlines the permitting process for energy projects, sets a 150-day deadline for seeking judicial review of agency actions, guarantees at least one offshore oil and gas lease sale per year in the Gulf of Mexico from 2025 to 2029, forces the secretary of the Department of Energy to make decisions on LNG export applications within 90 days of environmental reviews being completed, and creates numerous regulatory exemptions.

Manchin in a Dec. 16 statement said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) should have included the measure in the continuing resolution deliberations. Excluding it “does a disservice to the incoming Trump Administration” which “will now be forced to operate with their hands tied behind their backs” without provisions in the proposed permit-reform legislation greasing the rails.

“Meaningful permitting reform will continue to be subject to the Senate’s 60-vote threshold next year and cannot be done by executive action alone,” he stated.

The permit reform bill drew criticism from some Democrats for curtailing public comments and litigation timelines, and from many Republicans for allegedly failing to address electric grid reliability, trim 2022 Inflation Reduction Act subsidies for renewables, and substantially revise the National Environmental Policy Act.

With a GOP trifecta assuming power in January, Johnson told reporters on Dec. 16 that permit reform can wait while lawmakers focus on adopting a continuing resolution to fund federal government operations through March 2025.

The House speaker said the compromise permitting reform bill was never likely to be heard in the House, which has already set forth a permitting and National Environmental Policy Act reform program within HR 1, the massive energy policy omnibus adopted by the chamber in 2023 but never heard in the Senate.

Senate Democrats over the past two years have failed to “achieve meaningful permitting reform,” he said, expressing confidence that with Republicans set to control both chambers and the White House, a better reform package will be adopted.

Barrasso, in a statement, said he is “proud” of his 18-month collaboration with Manchin and pledged to continue leading the effort to deregulate and accelerate timelines.

“We will keep working to knock down barriers to producing and delivering that energy,” he said. “Our work on permitting reform is not done.”