Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., is continuing to push for reform in the federal permitting process and to include a sensible “all of the above” energy strategy without jeopardizing the fossil fuel industry.
Capito wrote in an op-ed for National Review prior to the United Nations climate summit that President Joe Biden’s anti-energy policies are “no secret to working families across the United States.”
“How we got here is plain to see for those who now pay higher utility bills and put more expensive gas in their cars and trucks,” she said. “It turns out that shutting down pipelines, stopping oil and gas leases, denying or delaying permits, and targeting energy producers with fees and burdensome regulations eventually strains families’ budgets and strangles the U.S. economy.”
Capito said Biden should recognize the consequences of these policy failures at the climate summit and whether he does will be “significant as countries gather to discuss ways to reduce global emissions.”
People should be watching closely, she said, because during the 2020 campaign he promised “to go after fossil fuels of any kind, no matter the harm to lower-income Americans.”
“His Environmental Protection Agency continues to develop rules to penalize domestic energy production, target small refineries, and levy new regulations on the natural-gas industry, which is ironic because it has become a leading energy source for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions,” she said. “As oil and gas prices rose to alarming levels, and a war in Europe underscored the necessity of energy independence, the Biden administration continued to appease environmental groups and the far Left, all at the expense of U.S. workers and employers.”
Capito said Biden now has a chance “to take the opportunity to lead with concrete steps that can ease the current hardships of U.S. consumers and our allies, while also protecting our environment.”
A good start, she said, would be to end “the war on American natural gas.”
“Households will spend an average $931 on heating during the upcoming winter months, a 28 percent increase from last winter,” she said. “Perhaps more important to those who agree with President Biden’s environmental policies, America’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) is 30 percent cleaner than Russian natural gas. Increasing domestic energy production here — where it’s produced, refined, and transported in a much ‘greener’ way than in other nations — isn’t just good for business; it’s good for the planet.”
Confronting China and India on being the “fastest-growing global emitters also deserve to be confronted,” she said, since those two countries are responsible for 90 percent of the increase in carbon emissions over the past decade.
“Chinese coal production hit a record high in 2022, while President Biden’s policies are projected to kill tens of thousands of U.S. coal jobs by 2035,” she said. “That’s an alarming trend, and one that won’t be reversed by government spending or White House ceremonies celebrating slush-fund grants for activists.”
Domestic energy production of both fossil fuels and renewables can be sped up with permitting reform.
“For example, the National Mining Association found it takes between seven and 10 years to permit a mine in the United States,” she said. “This is simply too long, especially as future demand will only rise for minerals and materials needed for products such as batteries and turbines. These emerging technologies will not progress if red tape and regulatory reviews don’t allow these projects to get off the ground.”
Capito said the world can hear about American efforts to lead on these issues at the climate summit.
“We’ve seen the failed results of virtue-signaling and climate appeasement,” she said.
“However, it’s not too late. We still have an opportunity to turn the tide and ensure that the United States becomes more energy independent and, in turn, more prosperous.”
In an interview with national media on Friday, Capito said all energy sources should be included.
“I think as we look at our heating costs going up, especially as we head into winter, I think that’s when the American people are going to realize that an all-of-the-above energy plan is what we should be doing,” she said. “And that includes coal, natural, gas, nuclear, solar, yes – wind and everything else, but we have to have baseline fuel to power this country.”
In September, Capito, Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, led a group of her GOP colleagues in introducing the Simplify Timelines and Assure Regulatory Transparency (START) Act, a comprehensive federal regulatory permitting and project review reform legislation.
During that time, an attempt by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to get permitting reform included in a continuing resolution to extend funding for the federal government failed.
Manchin, who garnered support for the reform from Democratic colleagues after committing to support the Inflation Reduction Act, did not get the GOP support he needed so he withdrew the permitting reform from the continuing resolution so it would pass.
But Capito said she will continue to push START.
“This is an on-going process and I am certainly not giving up,” she said at the time. “But we have to have that bipartisan back and forth that you get when you negotiate. We are still looking at it because it’s important for all types of energy. We want to make sure energy gets delivered here in this country because we are energy abundant.”
Capito said the START Act would “provide regulatory certainty to states, expedite permitting and review processes, codify substantive environmental regulatory reforms, and expedite permitting of the critically important Mountain Valley Pipeline. Republicans are unified in working to deliver needed permitting reform, and this legislation is a blueprint for how we can help communities benefit from being able to finally get critical projects across the finish line.”