Capito Statement on White House Permitting Rules Adding Red Tape, Delays to Project Review Process

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, released the following statement after the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued its final National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) rules that add burdensome requirements, red tape, and unnecessary mandates to the nation’s permitting and environmental review process.

“The White House continues to say it is in favor of making it easier to build things in America while at the same time imposing more and more regulations that will do the opposite. Unfortunately, the rules finalized today favor only the projects the Biden administration views as compliant with its unrealistic climate agenda. By layering on even more project review requirements, this administration is adding new roadblocks to an already broken permitting process that will hinder job-creating energy, infrastructure, and transportation projects of all kinds.”

BACKGROUND:

In February 2024, officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Army for Civil Works confirmed to Ranking Member Capito that the Biden administration’s climate regulations, including the “social cost of carbon” and “greenhouse gas emissions,” are not statutorily required and suggested these are the cause of many delays to key infrastructure projects across the country.

In September 2023, Ranking Member Capito led Republican members of the EPW Committee in writing to White House CEQ Chair Brenda Mallory, urging the administration to withdraw its proposed Phase 2 rules that added confusing, burdensome proposed permitting requirements onto the commonsense project review reforms achieved in the bipartisan Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA).

In May 2023, Ranking Member Capito and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee, introduced two pieces of legislation to substantively reform the nation’s broken permitting and environmental review processes, which are currently delaying key energy, infrastructure, and transportation projects across America.
 

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