NEPA Reviews proposed to be limited and streamlined by Congress
Agreement with Manchin includes the rolling back of NEPA to streamline bedrock environmental processes to avoid NEPA reviews on Congress' selected projects.
This is not good for any of us to allow Congress to decide which projects can avoid full NEPA reviews, and which jurisdiction would hear motions to oppose and or appeals for a specific project.
TARA HOUSKA: "It, to me, says you’ve got a project that has not passed environmental review. It’s a project that funders and investors are very concerned about. It’s a project that’s bad all the way around and just cannot get momentum and get it going. And here you see Congress just deciding, “Oh, you know what? We’re going to give it a pass,” and specifically this project, so, setting this precedent of, well, even if your project doesn’t meet environmental reviews, even if it’s not fiscally responsible, even if it’s not going to meet any standard of economic development, you still might get it through. That’s what this precedent is saying." -- -From a recent interview with Democracy Now .
According to -- Tara Houska, Indigenous lawyer and founder of Giniw Collective it seems the Congressional agreement with Senator Manchin to pass the recent Reconciliation Bill in the Senate is "Like, this is a handshake agreement about the permitting provisions, the rolling back of NEPA, the, quote-unquote, “streamlining” of bedrock environmental processes and designation of 25 different projects to avoid these reviews." .... “Black and Brown people continue to disparately experience the effects of extractive industry,” she adds. Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign , says the bill contains too much compromise. “Part of the bill was putting a pipeline that Black and white and Brown and poor people in frontline communities are fighting right now,” he says.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ [Democracy Now]: The Inflation Reduction Act provides over $6 billion in funding for environmental justice priorities, something Rob Weissman mentioned earlier. Tara, was anyone in the environmental justice movement that you know involved in helping to craft this provision?
TARA HOUSKA: No. There’s been some pretty serious pushback regarding the lack of representation in the drafting of this bill, specifically on the pieces that affect our communities directly. You know, from my perspective, it doesn’t really work to throw money at us if we don’t have habitable places to live. So, if our communities are underwater or if our air is poisoned and we’ve got pipelines and mines and all the things that are destroying our lands actively, how is some investments in block grants supposed to help us? You know, those are really serious questions that this bill is lacking.
And to that one piece that was just said, too, about, like, where we’re at in terms of blocking the bill, you know, there is this side deal that Manchin has mentioned and that they promised him, right? Like, this is a handshake agreement about the permitting provisions, the rolling back of NEPA, the, quote-unquote, “streamlining” of bedrock environmental processes and designation of 25 different projects to avoid these reviews. That’s going back to the House, and they’re going to try to attach it to appropriations. So there still is something that can be done at the congressional level.
In order to pass the recent Reconciliation Bill in the Senate, according to ProPublica article : Contributed by Ken Ward Jr. (Mountain State Spotlight) to ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network there is this Congressional agreement in order to " ... accommodate the West Virginia senator, Democratic leadership agreed to legislation streamlining permits for the often-stalled Mountain Valley Pipeline [MVP] and removing jurisdiction from a court that keeps ruling against the project." .... "The White House and congressional leaders have agreed to step in and ensure final approval of all permits that the Mountain Valley Pipeline needs, according to a summary released by Manchin’s office Monday evening."
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22125418-2022_08_02_manchin-energy-permitting
Energy Permitting Provisions
Designate and prioritize projects of strategic national importance.
Direct the President to designate and periodically update a list of at least 25 high-priority energy infrastructure projects and prioritize permitting for these projects.
Require a balanced list of project types, including: critical minerals, nuclear, hydrogen, fossil fuels, electric transmission, renewables, and carbon capture, sequestration, storage, and removal.
Criteria for selecting designated projects includes: reducing consumer energy costs, improving energy reliability, decarbonization potential, and promoting energy trade with our allies.
Set maximum timelines for permitting reviews, including two years for NEPA reviews for major projects and one year for lower-impact projects.
Require a single inter-agency environmental review document and concurrent agency review processes.
Designate a lead agency to coordinate inter-agency review.
Expand eligibility for the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC) streamlining and transparency programs to ensure smaller energy projects, critical minerals and mining, and other key programs can benefit from FPISC. Provide FPISC funds to accelerate permitting.
Improve the process for developing categorical exclusions under NEPA.
Improve Section 401 of the Clean Water Act by incorporating improvements from both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Require one of four final actions within one year of certification requests: grant, grant with conditions, deny, or waive certification.
Clarify that the basis of review is water quality impacts from the permitted activity, based on federal, State, and Tribal standards.
Require certification applications to include available information on potential water quality impacts.
Prohibit State or Tribal agencies from requesting project applicants to withdraw applications to stop/pause/restart the certification clock.
Require States and Tribes to publish clear requirements for water quality certification requests, or else default to federal requirements.
Address excessive litigation delays.
Set statute of limitations for court challenges.
Require that if a federal court remands or vacates a permit for energy infrastructure, the court must set and enforce a reasonable schedule and deadline, not to exceed 180 days, for the agency to act on remand.
Require random assignment of judges for all federal circuit courts.
Clarify FERC jurisdiction regarding the regulation of interstate hydrogen pipeline, storage, import, and export facilities.
Enhance federal government permitting authority for interstate electric transmission facilities that have been determined by the Secretary of Energy to be in the national interest.
Replace DOE’s national interest electric transmission corridor process with a national interest determination by the Secretary of Energy that allows FERC to issue a construction permit.
Require FERC to ensure costs for transmission projects are allocated to customers that benefit.
Allow FERC to approve payments from utilities to jurisdictions impacted by a transmission project.
Complete the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Require the relevant agencies to take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and give the DC Circuit jurisdiction over any further litigation.
