Key Democrats say they are not willing to play ball to achieve a deal on permitting reform unless the administration stops going after green energy projects — especially those that have already been approved.
“The elephant in the room now is the stop-work orders that the administration has put out because if you can ignore the law and you can stop someone’s job on a fully permitted project, then does permitting law really matter?” Sen. Martin Heinrich (N.M.), the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, asked The Hill in a recent interview.
The Trump administration has moved to block several offshore wind projects that were approved and got permits to build during the Biden administration.
The Trump administration has said in a series of court filings that it hopes to block at least three of those projects, including one in New England that was already about 80 percent constructed.
The White House has carried out multiple attacks on green energy. It previously slashed tax subsidies for renewables, sought to slow down federal approval of wind and solar projects and said it would try to block projects that take up a lot of room, which would disproportionately impact the sector.
At the same time, the administration has expressed support for cutting red tape, which lawmakers say they hope to do with a bipartisan deal.
Members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of moderate members of both parties, on Thursday proposed a new framework for a potential bipartisan deal.
Their framework includes provisions supported by Republicans to limit lawsuits over energy projects while also giving Democrats wins they’re seeking to build out more power lines — which they hope could get renewable energy onto the grid more quickly.
At the same time, the framework’s backers said the Trump administration will have to stop targeting renewables in order for a deal to actually be achieved.
“If we keep on going in this process and we get near the finish line, and the argument becomes, ‘Hey, you guys are making this deal, and they’re not going to approve any of the green projects anyway,’ then it’s going to be very hard for us to keep the deal going forward,” said Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.).
Read more at TheHill.com.
