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permitting reform
Western Groups Warn Democrats: 'No Deal With Devil on Permit Reform'
The coalition organizer called on party leaders "to withdraw from negotiations and stand with us and the public lands, waters, and wildlife of the West to build momentum for a progressive permit reform effort."
Apr 16, 2026
Amid permitting reform negotiations and votes in the Republican-led Congress this week, dozens of organizations from the US West on Thursday urged Democratic leaders to reject "a reactive capitulation to energy and technology industry demands and the Trump administration's deliberately engineered regulatory chaos."
"There is simply no precedent for what this administration has wrought, and permitting reform proposals under consideration—which scapegoat environmental laws—will only deepen the harm," warned 73 community, conservation, faith, and Indigenous groups in a letter to the top Democrats in each chamber, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), as well as those on two relevant Senate panels.
In December, 11 Democrats came under fire for voting with nearly all Republicans in the US House of Representatives to advance the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act. Led by retiring Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Committee on Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), it would amend the crucial National Environmental Policy Act, a frequent target of climate polluters and their allies in Congress.
With the SPEED Act pending in the Senate—where the GOP generally needs some Democratic support to advance legislation, due to its narrow majority and the filibuster rule—House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) took to the chamber's floor on Wednesday to promote three other bills. The FENCES Act, FIRE Act, and RED Tape Act, he said, "are an essential part of the committee's broader efforts on permitting reform and align with White House permitting priorities."
The House passed the FENCES and RED Tape bills on Thursday. Golden and Democratic Reps. Jim Costa (Calif.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (NC), Adam Gray (Calif.), and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.) joined Republicans in backing the former. Those Democrats, plus Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), also voted with the GOP for the latter.
Meanwhile, in the upper chamber, Republicans on Thursday passed a House-approved resolution to reverse a 20-year moratorium on mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Still, Senate Environment and Public Works Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) told Politico's E&E News earlier this week that "we're making steady progress" on permitting reform talks, "and it would not be unreasonable to have something to show our caucuses by the August recess."
The coalition of Western groups argued Thursday that "given Congress' ideological composition and alignment with the Trump administration's agenda, any permitting legislation that could conceivably emerge from this Congress and be signed into law by the president would unacceptably erode bedrock community and environmental safeguards, exclude the public from federal decision-making, and diminish the transparency and accountability now demanded of government agencies by federal law."
The groups pointed to various examples, including what critics called President Donald Trump's recent $1 billion "taxpayer-funded bribe" to get TotalEnergies to cancel its planned wind farms in favor of oil and gas projects, as well as his so-called God Squad's unprecedented exemption allowing fossil fuel operations in the Gulf of Mexico to ignore policies intended to protect endangered species. The letter also stresses that "Congress has not checked this abuse—it has enabled it."
"Rather than press forward with ill-fated legislation in this fraught moment, we therefore ask that you stand with us in defense of climate action and the public lands, waters, and wildlife, and communities of the West," the coalition wrote to Whitehouse, Schumer, Jeffries, and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Martin Heinrich (D-NM).
"It is this fight—in this moment—that can build shared trust and set the conditions for constructive legislation that strengthens and revitalizes the federal government's capacity to serve the public interest," the coalition continued. "This means, to us, the build-out, protection, and restoration of green infrastructure (built or natural) and the full integration of ecological and community considerations into climate and energy policy as a precondition of our ability to thrive in kinship with an abundant world."
The letter urging "no deal with [the] devil on permit reform" was authored by Western Environmental Law Center executive director Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, who stressed in a statement that "the first rule of negotiation is that it's impossible to reach workable solutions with bad-faith actors."
"Today's Republican Congress has shown unprecedented hostility to climate, environmental, and community protections," he said. "It is glaringly obvious that any changes to our bedrock environmental laws signed by President Trump would sacrifice far too much and compromise the imperative to foster a just and equitable transition to an economy powered by renewable energy."
Schlenker-Goodrich called on Heinrich and Whitehouse "to withdraw from negotiations and stand with us and the public lands, waters, and wildlife of the West to build momentum for a progressive permit reform effort with stronger bargaining power after the midterm elections" in November.
Other signatories include leaders at the Center for Biological Diversity, Climate Justice Alliance, Friends of the Shasta River, GreenLatinos of New Mexico, Orange County Coastkeeper, Oregon Wild, Sierra Club Montana Chapter, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Umpqua Watersheds, Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians, Wyoming Wilderness Association, and more.
"Deregulatory permitting reform right now only means the fossil fuel industry will be forever dominant in this nation, which is why they are the biggest cheerleader for making a deal now," said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Democrats must focus on fighting the lawless Trump administration and the fossil fuel industry, not cut deals with people that only seek to destroy clean energy and a livable future."
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Senate Dems Stop Permitting Talks Over Trump's 'Reckless and Vindictive Assault' on Wind Power
"By sabotaging US energy innovation and killing American jobs, the Trump administration has made clear that it is not interested in permitting reform," said Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Martin Heinrich.
Dec 22, 2025
The top Democrats on a pair of key US Senate panels ended negotiations to reform the federal permitting process for energy projects in response to the Trump administration's Monday attack on five offshore wind projects along the East Coast.
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Martin Heinrich (D-NM) began their joint statement by thanking the panels' respective chairs, Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), "for their good-faith efforts to negotiate a permitting reform bill that would have lowered electricity prices for all Americans."
"There was a deal to be had that would have taken politics out of permitting, made the process faster and more efficient, and streamlined grid infrastructure improvements nationwide," the Democrats said. "But any deal would have to be administered by the Trump administration. Its reckless and vindictive assault on wind energy doesn't just undermine one of our cheapest, cleanest power sources, it wrecks the trust needed with the executive branch for bipartisan permitting reform."
Earlier Monday, the US Department of the Interior halted Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind off Virginia, Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind off New York, Revolution Wind off Rhode Island and Connecticut, and Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts, citing radar interference concerns.
Governors and members of Congress from impacted states, including Whitehouse and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), condemned the announcement, with Whitehouse pointing to a recent legal battle over the project that would help power Rhode Island.
"It's hard to see the difference between these new alleged radar-related national security concerns and the radar-related national security allegations the Trump administration lost in court, a position so weak that they declined to appeal their defeat," he said.
This looks more like the kind of vindictive harassment we have come to expect from the Trump administration than anything legitimate.
— Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (@whitehouse.senate.gov) December 22, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Later, he and Heinrich said that "by sabotaging US energy innovation and killing American jobs, the Trump administration has made clear that it is not interested in permitting reform. It will own the higher electricity prices, increasingly decrepit infrastructure, and loss of competitiveness that result from its reckless policies."
"The illegal attacks on fully permitted renewable energy projects must be reversed if there is to be any chance that permitting talks resume," they continued. "There is no path to permitting reform if this administration refuses to follow the law."
Reporting on Whitehouse and Heinrich's decision, the Hill reached out to Capito and Lee's offices, as well as the Interior Department, whose spokesperson, Alyse Sharpe, "declined to comment beyond the administration's press release, which claimed the leases were being suspended for national security reasons."
Lee responded on social media with a gif:
Although the GOP has majorities in both chambers of Congress, Republicans don't have enough senators to get most bills to a final vote without Democratic support.
The Democratic senators' Monday move was expected among observers of the permitting reform debate, such as Heatmap senior reporter Jael Holzman, who wrote before their statement came out that "Democrats in Congress are almost certainly going to take this action into permitting reform talks... after squabbling over offshore wind nearly derailed a House bill revising the National Environmental Policy Act last week."
That bill, the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, was pilloried by green groups after its bipartisan passage. It's one of four related pieces of legislation that the House advanced last week. The others are the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, Power Plant Reliability Act, and Reliable Power Act.
David Arkush, director of the consumer advocacy group's Climate Program, blasted all four bills as "blatant handouts to the fossil fuel and mining industries" that would do "nothing to help American families facing staggering energy costs and an escalating climate crisis."
"We need real action to lower energy bills for American families and combat the climate crisis," he argued. "The best policy response would be to fast-track a buildout of renewable energy, storage, and transmission—an approach that would not just make energy more affordable and sustainable, but create US jobs and bolster competitiveness with China, which is rapidly outpacing the US on the energy technologies of the future.
Instead, Arkush said, congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump "are shamefully pushing legislation that would only exacerbate the energy affordability crisis and further entrench the dirty, dangerous, and unaffordable energy of the past."
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11 House Democrats Help GOP Pass 'Disastrous' Pro-Polluter Permitting Bill
"The SPEED Act protects corporate interests, not the public, and it should be rejected by any senator who claims to stand with the people," said one campaigner.
Dec 18, 2025
Eleven Democrats on Thursday voted with nearly all Republicans in the US House of Representatives to advance a permitting reform bill that climate and frontline organizations warn is a "disastrous" attack on a landmark environmental protection law.
Democratic Reps. Jim Costa (Calif.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Don Davis (NC), Chris Deluzio (Pa.), Lizzie Fletcher (Texas), Jared Golden (Maine), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Adam Gray (Calif.), John Mannion (NY), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), and Marc Veasey (Texas) voted with all Republicans present expect Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) to pass the bill.
The Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, spearheaded by Golden and House Committee on Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), would amend the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which "is often called the 'Magna Carta' of federal environmental laws."
In a statement after the vote, Food & Water Watch legal director Tarah Heinzen said that "for decades, NEPA has ensured logical decision-making and community involvement when the federal government considers projects that could harm people and the environment. The SPEED Act would eviscerate NEPA's protections."
The group detailed key ways in which the SPEED Act attacks NEPA:
- Drastically limiting NEPA's scope of review: Removes many actions from NEPA review altogether, potentially allowing factory farms and coal plants to build and expand without any environmental review or public input;
- Limiting agency accountability: Creates unreasonably short deadlines to challenge inadequate reviews, and limits courts’ ability to stop unlawful projects; and
- Putting polluter profits above science and the environment: Turns NEPA on its head by requiring agencies to prioritize corporate interests over the public interest and limiting their ability to consider the best science.
"Today's absurd House vote is yet another handout to corporate polluters at the expense of everyday people who have to live with the real-world impacts of toxic pollution from dirty industries like fossil fuels and factory farms," Heinzen argued. "This nonsense must be dead on arrival in the Senate."
Other campaigners also looked to the upper chamber after the vote. Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center, said that "renewable energy and climate advocates in the Senate must hold the line against the SPEED Act's evisceration of our bedrock environmental and community protection law."
Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's US campaign manager, stressed that "our senators must stand up against the SPEED Act's attempts to undermine democratic decision-making, pollute our communities, and threaten our collective future."
For a Better Bayou's James Hiatt similarly said that "the SPEED Act protects corporate interests, not the public, and it should be rejected by any senator who claims to stand with the people."
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, co-coordinator of Black Alliance for Peace's Climate, Environment, and Militarism Initiative, warned that the bill "represents yet another assault on the health of frontline, Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor white communities that have been designated as sacrifice zones by big polluters who bribe lawmakers with big money to continue a culture of extract, slash, burn, and emit at the expense of oppressed and marginalized peoples."
"Rather than speeding up the approval of dirty projects, Congress should increase funding for federal agencies and grassroots organizations accountable to frontline communities to carry out legally defensible and accurate environmental analyses," he continued, pointing to the Environmental Justice for All Act, previously led by the late Democratic Congressmen Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.) and Donald McEachin (Va.).
Mar Zepeda Salazar, legislative director at Climate Justice Alliance, also pointed to that alternative: "The SPEED Act fast-tracks harmful fossil fuel and polluting projects, not the community-led clean energy solutions families and Indigenous peoples across the country have long called for. Instead of pushing the SPEED Act—a bill that would strip away what few legal protections communities still have, weaken safeguards for clean air, land, and water near new industrial development, and sidestep meaningful consultation with federally recognized tribal nations—Congress should be advancing real, community-driven permitting reform."
"Examples include the Environmental Justice for All Act, which lays out meaningful public engagement, strong public health protections, respect for tribal sovereignty and consultation obligations, and serious investments in agencies and staff," she said.
Representatives from the Institute for Policy Studies, Sacred Places Institute for Indigenous Peoples, and Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice also spoke out against what David Watkins, director of government affairs for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, condemned as "a sizable holiday gift basket for Big Oil and Gas." He, too, urged the Senate to "reject this retrograde legislation and stand up to the deep-pocketed, polluting industries lobbying for it."
Lauren Pagel, policy director at Earthworks, pointed out that passing the SPEED Act wasn't the only way in which the House on Thursday "chose corporate interests over people, Indigenous Peoples' rights, and our environment." It also passed the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, which "will remove already-scarce protections for natural resources and sacred cultural sites in US mining law."
"Today's House votes are a step backwards for our nation, but we continue to stand firm for the rights of the people and places on the frontlines of oil, gas, and mining," Pagel said. "Communities and ecosystems shouldn't pay the price while corporations rush to profit off extraction—with a helping hand from our elected officials."
Along with those two pieces of legislation, Public Citizen pointed to the House's approval of the Power Plant Reliability Act and Reliable Power Act earlier this week. David Arkush, director of the consumer advocacy group's Climate Program, said that the bills advancing through Congress "under the guise of 'bipartisan permitting reform' are blatant handouts to the fossil fuel and mining industries."
"We need real action to lower energy bills for American families and combat the climate crisis," Arkush asserted, calling on congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump "to fast-track a buildout of renewable energy, storage, and transmission—an approach that would not just make energy more affordable and sustainable, but create US jobs and bolster competitiveness with China, which is rapidly outpacing the US on the energy technologies of the future."
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