House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., on Wednesday called for bipartisan permitting reform to accelerate energy infrastructure development, warning that fragmented decision-making is slowing projects and putting electric grid reliability at risk.
Speaking at a Punchbowl News event, Guthrie said that by the end of this Congress, success would mean enacting bipartisan reforms that give energy investors long-term certainty around permitting rules as power demand rises nationwide.
“It needs to be bipartisan,” Guthrie said. “If you’re going to build double your current generation capacity, you want to make sure … the rules don’t change because you got a 30-year investment.”
“If it’s bipartisan, it lasts longer, and it’s stable, and [companies] can allocate resources based on what they can predict,” he added. “We all agree what brings us together is we want America to dominate.”
Guthrie said the core challenge is the pace of building new energy infrastructure. “You have to be able to build that in the next year or two. You can’t wait 10 years,” he said, describing energy deployment as “a race against time” as demand grows nationwide and global competition intensifies.
He emphasized that reform efforts should not weaken environmental protections but instead streamline the approval process. “We don’t want to change the standard. We just want to speed the process,” Guthrie said.
Guthrie linked permitting delays directly to grid reliability concerns, particularly as electricity demand rises nationwide. He cited recent extreme weather events and capacity shortfalls as evidence that the grid requires “dispatchable, reliable, and affordable power.”
“People want to have the lights come on when they turn the lights on,” Guthrie said.
However, a central sticking point in negotiations remains the balance of federal and state authority over major infrastructure projects. Guthrie said lawmakers are still debating whether federal officials should preempt state decisions on projects with national implications.
“The holdup is … do you preempt states? Do you not preempt states?” he said, adding, “Who makes the decision whether there’s a pipeline … or transmission lines going through a state? Do the state and local leaders get to make that decision when it has a national impact, or is that left for Washington? That’s the discussion.”
Other lawmakers, including Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., have also recently called for permitting reforms for energy and broadband infrastructure as a priority this Congress.
“Both sides, Republicans and Democrats, I think, understand the need for permitting reform. We’ve got to get some kind of deal done this Congress. So, that’s my top priority now,” Hudson said during a separate Punchbowl News event in October.