Click here or the image above to watch Round 1 of Ranking Member Capito’s questions. Click here to watch Round 2.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, participated in the Senate’s first hearing to discuss the need for substantive reforms to America’s permitting and environmental review processes, and what it means for employers, workers, and consumers.

HIGHLIGHTS:

IMPACT OF DELAYS, BROKEN PERMITTING PROCESS ON WORKERS, CONSUMERS:

RANKING MEMBER CAPITO:

“When delays in efficiency occurs, and I think we pretty much generally all agree the delays in efficiencies are in the system and are occurring…how does this ultimately impact an American worker and a consumer? The longer it takes to build it gets more expensive for your energy. The longer it takes to build your pipeliners aren’t working or your folks who are not siting windmills. How does this affect your workers and consumers?”

JAY TIMMONS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS:

“We do a survey each quarter for our members. Seventy-four percent said that permitting reform would be helpful to their company and 74% cited that as a problem in terms of slowing down projects. As you just mentioned, it does have an impact, but it has an impact on communities has an impact on businesses, it has an impact on workers. The longer it takes for an investment to be made, the longer it takes to put a shovel in the ground, the more delay there is for the great jobs, jobs that pay more than any other sector of the economy, to be realized.”

NO ENERGY TRANSITION WITHOUT PERMITTING, PROJECT REVIEW REFORMS:

RANKING MEMBER CAPITO:

“I think we've heard a lot of common themes: consistency, persistence, predictability, as large global concepts. Also, not shortcutting the environmental review as very important, but also the community involvement piece. I see those as very consistent through all the testimony. But I also heard a lot about energy transitions, and how important that is. I'll ask you, Mr. Durbin, do you believe this energy transition can occur if we don't do some of these reforms?”

MARTY DURBIN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF POLICY, U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE:

“The quick answer is no, I don't think we're going to be able to achieve the ambitious objective that we put out. I think they are common objectives. We've all agreed that these are things we want to achieve. Let’s strengthen our energy security here at home, allow ourselves to provide the allies around the world while accelerating a transition to a cleaner energy. But you can't get there if we can't get the projects in the ground, the technology, the transmission lines, all of that. We can't get to those if we don't have a permitting process that facilitates a faster process.”

ON THE NECESSITY OF PERMITTING REFORM FOR ALL TYPES OF ENERGY SOURCES:

“No matter what we want to see in the future permitting is at the base of all this…we heard about CHIPS, we passed a CHIPS program, where we're going to build EVs and we're going to put all these chips in here, but you have to permit the mine in order to get the materials to put into the chips because there's Made in America provisions in here.

“In my view, a good process on the front end is not skirting any environmental provisions, we've all talked about that. We've talked about community involvement, how very important that is, with getting everybody at the table. But if we're going to go to an energy transition where it's all windmills and it's all solar panels, and all the provisions for saying re-siting or building a new, natural gas or doing CCUS, which we’ve tax incentivized here at the Senate level with the presidential signature, those are not going to be ones that we're ever going to permit because of the fuel source that they have? Even though they're cleaning up a coal plant or a natural gas plant that might be a high emitter. That doesn't make any sense to me.

“My heart is in this permitting reform. I want to work out a compromise here. But I'm concerned because I feel like it's going to be to the exclusion of other things that make sense.”

Click HERE to watch Round 1 of Ranking Member Capito’s questions.

Click HERE to watch Round 2 of Ranking Member Capito’s questions.

Click HERE to watch Ranking Member Capito’s opening statement.

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