SPEED Act to streamline environmental reviews passes House Natural Resources Committee
WASHINGTON – The American Gas Association applauded U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and Reps. Jared Golden (D-ME), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Pete Stauber (R-MN), Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), Harriet Hageman (R-WY), Michael Baumgartner (R-WA), Gabe Evans (R-CO), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), Donald Davis (D-NC), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), Adam Gray (D-CA), Nick Begich (R-AK), Jim Costa (D-CA), and Jennifer Kiggans (R-VA) for the swift passage of H.R. 4776, the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act on Thursday. The bill forwards bipartisan reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to facilitate a more efficient, effective and predictable environmental review process.
“The SPEED Act is essential to depoliticizing the environmental review process and allowing for thoughtful and timely review of critical infrastructure projects,” said AGA President and CEO Karen Harbert. “Increased efficiency of environmental reviews will help natural gas utilities deliver energy more safely, reliably and affordably to customers across the country – a critical piece of meeting the needs of growing demand while protecting affordability for American families and businesses. AGA thanks Chairman Westerman and the many bipartisan cosponsors of the SPEED Act for their swift work to move this bill through committee and towards a vote on the House floor.”
The SPEED Act streamlines the environmental review process under NEPA, ensuring thoughtful environmental review while minimizing delays in construction and deployment of critical infrastructure, including pipelines. The legislation helps prevent abuse of the environmental review process, narrows the scope of reviews to analyze only effects that share a reasonably close causal relationship to and are proximately caused by the immediate project under consideration and takes meaningful steps to improve the environmental review process by limiting the timeline for lawsuits to prevent frivolous litigation from halting projects indefinitely.
The SPEED Act also revises NEPA to allow for reliance on environmental reviews conducted pursuant to other federal and state statutes that meet NEPA’s requirements, helping to streamline the review process and avoid arduous redundancies that slow the environmental review process at both the federal and state level without enhancing environmental gains.
Reforms to NEPA and to the permitting process are essential to meeting the growing demand for energy while preserving affordability for American consumers. Federal and state policies are currently among the biggest barriers to the construction of energy infrastructure, including natural gas pipelines and storage facilities.