UPDATE 7/31/24, 12:25 PM CT: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved broad permitting and grid development legislation 15-4 Wednesday morning.
S. 4753 contains provisions for faster permits for renewable energy projects, requirements for oil and gas lease sales that align with industry demands, and timing limits for Department of Energy liquefied natural gas export approvals. The bill also tries to address bipartisan concerns on siting and cost considerations for grid purposes.
NAED Submits Comments on Energy Permitting Reform Act
7/31/24, 8:27 AM CT: As a follow-up to an article that electrifiED posted last week, “Senate Committee Proposes Energy Permitting Reform Legislation“, NAED’s Senior Vice President of Membership and Government Relations, Ed Orlet, sent us the following statement:
NAED has submitted comments (as shown below) for the “markup” session of the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024. Markup is when a Congressional committee meets to review and propose changes to a bill. The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources was scheduled to mark up the bill on the morning of July 31, 2024.
According to an Evolved Energy Research study cited by experts at the Center for Strategic & International Studies:
Over 80% of the potential emissions reductions envisioned by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2030 are lost if transmission expansion is constrained to the recent historical pace of 1% per year, and roughly 25% are lost if growth is limited to 1.5% per year.
To unlock the full emissions reduction potential of the Inflation Reduction Act, the pace of transmission expansion must more than double the rate over the last decade to reach an average of ~2.3% per year. That rate of expansion is comparable to the long-term average rate of transmission additions from 1978-2020.
Orlet said, “We’re not asking for anything revolutionary – just a return to the historical average. The U.S. economy cannot decarbonize and provide the energy we need to maintain our position as a global economic powerhouse without meaningful permitting reform.”
Here are the comments as submitted by Orlet on behalf of NAED:
Tagged with legislation, NAED