This piece originally appeared at Green Tape.
House Natural Resources just revealed their portion of the reconciliation package, and as expected, they’re going to make a play at NEPA reform. They went big.
For starters, HNR should be commended for sticking with its permitting reform effort while many other committees have thrown in the towel. Reconciliation is tricky, to be sure, and several staffers have expressed to me their concern that the parliamentarian will strike down any permitting effort as “merely incidental”. I don’t want to suggest that this outcome isn’t a real possibility, of course – but there are ways to draft reform structures that are very similar to those that sailed through reconciliation in 2022.
HNR’s proposed reform is what I’ve been referring to as “pay-to-play.” It’s the structure that many of us have been expecting since as far back as December, when President Trump promised expedited permitting for energy projects investing more than $1 billion.
