fallen once again to the great democracies. >> american democracy is bigger than any one person. >> freedom and democracy must constantly be guarded and protected. >> we are still, at our core, a democracy. >> this is also a massive victory for democracy and freedom. ♪ >> the senate environment and public works committee met to discuss ways to make the permitting process more efficient. witnesses advocated for modernizing the regulatory system and creating opportunities for homebuilders. additionally, they asked congress to provide clear intent for agencies to implement policies. this is an hour and 45 minutes.

>> welcome. sorry i didn't get to shake your hands. i will do that as we move through. i apologize for being a few minutes late. i want to start with my opening statement and then i will go to the ranking member. then we will have our witnesses. good morning and thank you for being here. the need to modernize our federal environmental review and permitting process is something we have talked about. both to grow our economy and improve our environmental stewardship. i am excited about this hearing. our witnesses will share their valuable perspectives and set the stage for the committee work on this important topic. to ensure we take a holistic view, we will keep this morning's hearing record open until march between first, to give all stakeholders their opportunity to share their experience with the existing

environment overview and permitting processes, identifying challenges and hopefully to suggest potential solutions. for too long, projects have been trapped in a cycle of redundant reviews, shifting goalposts and regulatory uncertainty. in my home state of west virginia, i have seen firsthand how these drive up in costs, these delays, not just for the projects but for the american families who are paying for more energy, housing and food as a result. meanwhile, businesses lack the certainty us is very to make long-term investments which can mean lost jobs, list economic opportunities for communities, scarcity and higher prices across the nation. it can also mean that the projects needed to deploy renewable energy technologies. it can also mean projects needed to deploy renewable energies or to restore the environment are also stilted. the framework for our

environmental review and permitting process is grounded in landmark laws under this committees jurisdiction. -- requires federal agencies to consider environmental impacts on federally funded projects or before implement in their project. other environmental and resource laws the clean water act, the clean air act and the endangered species act rely on permits and operational requirements to ensure critical projects are able to come to fruition in an environmentally responsible way. however, years of changes in guidance and regulations, administration to administration and a complex web of judicial rulings have resulted in ever-expanding -- an ever-expanding hodgepodge of contradictory requirements. while this confusing and complex body of common laws have grown over the past century, congress has not stepped in to provide the holistic clarifications and

modernizations. in the absence of congressional action, certain parties have found creative ways to use the judicial process to delay or strike down projects and raise costs to discourage projects sponsors for moving forward. as a result, costs have increased and delayed or stopped projects would help achieve goals in our environmental laws. last week, the house transportation and infrastructure committee heard testimony from nucor about how the need to obtain a clean water act permit triggered significant delays they stung required reviews on the endangered species act and the national store preservation act. these delays newly thwarted what would be the most environmentally friendly steel production facilities in the world. and that will employ over 1000 people in mason county, west virginia. it literally took an act of

congress to prevent the mountain valley pipeline to move clean natural gas from west virginia to our southern neighbors. i'm sure they are loving it today as it is under two degrees in austin and it is snowing in west virginia. it is cold everywhere. what is it? >> 47 below. >> 47 below. sorry, austin. two top highway priorities for the state of west virginia that would improve safety and mobility have encountered ultimo permitting delays under various environmental statues. the west virginia water line extension, broadband projects and bridge extensions have faced federal permitting delays. the problems we will explore today have been brewing for decades. this congress, we have an opportunity to deliver meaningful bipartisan

legislation that addresses these problems. i am committed to working with ranking member whitehouse, and the house committee counterparts to produce a bill with meaningful reforms. a permitting process reform must be bipartisan to be successful. i guiding principles for this effort are straightforward. the legislation that we developed must help all types of projects. not just politically favored projects or projects that will support the infrastructure needs of some americans but not others. we must provide clarity and transparency in the processes. and finally, our legislation needs to look at every stage of these processes to find efficiencies while balancing public health, the environment and the needs of our economy. let me be clear. modernizing these processes does not mean cutting corners or weakening environmental health protections. it means making the processes

more efficient, predictable and transparent so that the processes are not stuck in bureaucratic purgatory or enlist litigation. hard-working americans, small businesses and entrepreneurs want a government that works for them, not one that keeps them waiting for the benefits that many of the projects promised to bring in to their communities. i look forward to the discussions today and our witnesses experiences. i am hopeful we can reach a consensus on the issues the committee must focus on. with that, i look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. beginning the effort together to deliver real solutions for the american people. i yield to the ranking member, senator whitehouse. sen. whitehouse: this hearings witnesses will highlight the challenges people face building a variety of projects.

we want more. we will keep this record open for that month to make sure we hear from all interested stakeholders about their experiences and their recommendations. help us find where you encountered barriers and what solutions have worked well. we know that permitting reform is not exclusive to our committee. the chair and i are already engaged with our colleagues at the energy and natural resources committee and in the house. a word of warning. democrats cannot agree to any permitting form unless and until the trump administration ends it s lawless disregard for congressional authority and judicial orders. bidding remains frozen behind a fog bank of silent executive -- in blatant disregard of constitutional separation of powers, direct court orders and a sick principles of law. i have to note as a former u.s. attorney, i'm disgusted with

doj, where things are so bad that deeply conservative career prosecutors have resigned rather than carry out corrupt orders from trump cronies. it is everywhere and hurting people and projects. until the administration shows it will honor its oath to faithfully and impartially execute the laws, we can have zero confidence that any legislative compromise will be executed lawfully. it falls to my republican friends to bring this lawless unconstitutional madness to an end and i wish them good luck in that. on energy, we have particular reason to doubt the trump administration will faithfully execute any law we pass. the president has declared a fake energy emergency despite record production in america. he has defied energy to exclude renewables, the facts this -- fastest-growing energy sector. we are deep in a political quid pro quo.

china is chortling at the spectacle. i don't see a path to getting the bill until this lawlessness stops. and i don't see a path for a bill that excludes offshore wind, and industry with great jobs and huge potential. the men and women building these projects do not want them to stop as general president booker can attest. coastal states don't want them stopped. nor do the industries that support offshore wind, the louisiana shipyards and the midwest factories, the ports generating economic growth across our country. and neither do consumers. why would we want to pull america out of the clean energy race when investment last year topped $2 trillion? far exceeding investment in fossil fuels.

what fools we would be. if you want a future driven by chinese innovation, chinese industry and chinese power, keep it up. but you can't change the fact that the future of energy is clean and if we are not part of it, we will be left behind. the north american reliability -- raising concerns about energy shortfalls as our chair has pointed out in prior hearings. what would reduce the risk of those shortfalls? better permitting. we need to build out a grid to meet current and future demand. 70% of transmission lines are more than 25 years old and showing their age. we know what we need to do. we need to build and fast. right now, thousands of electricity generation projects are awaiting approval to connect to the grid. as of last april, 2.6 terawatts.

millions of engineering construction and manufacturing jobs installed, in part because of our -- stalled, in part because of our inability to build transmission lines. the stuff the scientists warned us would happen is happening. snicker all you want about green new deals, ignore all you want collapsing coastlines, glaciers and coral reefs. francis said slap mother nature and she will slap you back. the economic slap back is here now. it is skyrocketing insurance prices and failing home insurance markets. i will say it when climate havoc hits property and the insurance markets, it hits mortgage markets. so hard it can take down the whole economy. you may have missed it but last week the fed senate chairman said there would be regions of the country where you can't get

a mortgage anymore. when that hits the fan, americans will be interested in who helped into obstructed, pretending solar and wind energy are not energy will look awfully dumb. and not permitting and building a clean modern grid will look grossly negligent. let's stop the lawbreaking and start the grid building together. >> i like the last word. that is good. our first witness is jeremy harrell. the ceo of claire pratt -- clear path. mr. harrell has served in a multitude of energy and environmental positions on capitol hill. he's the chair emeritus of the -- board of directors. i will recognize you for five minutes. thank you for coming. >> thank you chairman for the kind introduction and thank you ranking member for the opportunity to testify today. my name is jeremy harrell and i'm the ceo of clear path.

america is at the dawn of a new era of unprecedented energy demand, fueled by robust economic growth, the revival of the american manufacturing and advances in ai and quantum computing. these developments have presented new challenges that offer immense opportunities for our country to build big. the regulatory process is not only unpredictable but is also one of the largest barriers to meeting energy, climate and economic development goals at the federal, state and local level. in the face of skyrocketing demand growth, building more resources has become more urgent. we need to let america build. nurse reported that annual growth rates are nearly double those of the last decade when nearly three projects were added to the grid per day. to meet that demand, we may need to build around six projects a day or 16,000 facilities by 2035. we will need a broad suite of technologies to do it.

these challenges are present in nearly every sector of the economy. from energy to housing to transportation projects. to be clear, the solution is not a development free-for-all. the regulatory -- must balance safety. it includes a step change reform, not weeks around the edges. reforms that demand good outcomes should start with three key objectives. one, leverage innovative american technologies. two, expedite reviews. three, streamline judicial review administrative actions. first, congress could require more account ability, provide more transparency and direct the use of modern technology. there is a clear need for more reliable information from federal agencies, ranging from the number of permits under review to how long they have been stuck in limbo. in many cases, federal agencies are not using the same systems or terminology. more transparent data will help with accountability and provide the public with information to

participate. congress should also consider the role of ai, machine learning and other state-of-the-art technologies to reduce the burden of project reviews. our system is still stuck in the 1990's. technology reforms are the lowest hanging fruit for bipartisan action. second, we must expedite the review process. faster approvals for projects that bring net benefits and comply with existing environmental laws are essential to meeting our nation's needs. congress could expand categorical exclusions to permit projects. cat exes are a one time determination that certain activities do not warrant the data collection and review that come with site-specific ea. they require agency decisions for each site however. there is some partisan support to support low-energy projects like geothermal. the permit by rule approach could offer significant benefits. balancing administered of speed,

safeguarding public health, safety and the environment. to do this, the criteria must be well defined, periodically reviewed and aligned with the overall regulatory framework. encouraging development in certain prequalified geographic areas could accelerate projects. previously disturbed lands or well-characterized areas like brown fuel. the impacts of this development are minimal in most cases. and are in or near the communities that need the economic growth the most. lastly, the judicial review of agency actions must be reforms. the current system is tilted toward those who seek to delay or block projects. for example, a recent analysis found litigation delayed fossil energy and clean energy projects i an average of four years. agencies won 71% of those challenges.

24% of projects that complete environmental review face litigation and the agency won 80% of those cases. major projects are regularly delayed by legal challenges that are ultimately overturned, it's time to assess whether our legal system is protecting consumers or protecting project opponents. congress could consider limiting legal challenges, narrowing the scope and setting strict review timelines. without changes, our nation is needlessly undermining our own economic development and climate goals. in conclusion, the u.s. is in a global competition for energy leadership. china and russia are deploying billions of dollars around the world to advance their geostrategic interests to control the sector and connect its supply chains. we must overcome our regulatory challenges to counter these efforts and meet mystic energy, economic -- meet domestic energy, economic and environmental -- it's time to let america build.

thank you. sen. moore capito: together. miss pilconis has served in multiple leadership positions. she has also -- is also a host of a podcast. i recognize her for her opening statement. >> chairman, ranking member whitehouse and other members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak. i appreciate your leadership and bipartisan efforts to improve the bipartisan review. these efforts are critical to ensure we can deliver much

needed infrastructure projects in a timely and cost-effective manner while maintaining strong environmental protections. as general counsel at the associated general contractors of america, i have learned how delays and environmental approvals don't just hold up projects. because workforce instability, drive up costs and jeopardize investments in critical infrastructure. these delays also impact the communities that rely on these projects for jobs, economic growth and modern safe infrastructure. we need to ensure timely project approvals, minimize litigation risks, and maintain economic growth. here are four ways congress can help. one, establish a uniform judicial review period. lawsuits can stop projects for years -- stall projects for years, even after they have gone under extensive environmental review. litigation is being used as a

tool to obstruct critical projects. this undermines planning, increases costs and deters investments. while congress has protected some infrastructure projects with a 150 day legal limit on challenges, most construction projects remain vulnerable for lawsuits up to six years under the administrative procedures act. egc urges congress to standardize the 150 day limited judicial review period for all critical infrastructure projects and eliminate unnecessary procedural hurdles that create prolonged uncertainty. once a project receives environmental -- final environmental approval, it should not remain in legal limbo for years. two, a line in environmental reviews with congressional intent. the bipartisan fiscal responsibility act was designed to streamline environmental permitting and prevent unnecessary delays.

however, the latest regulations contradict these reforms. congress must hold agencies accountable to ensure implementation stays true to the intent and does not add new later -- layers of bureaucracy that undermine project delivery. three, prevent regulatory fragmentation. recent court rulings and executive actions have highlighted the lack of clarity on need for implementation. without clear, statutory direction, agencies may adopt conflicting rules, making projects even more vulnerable to court challenges and forcing courts to interpret the law in a post chevron environment. congress must act to ensure a consistent and reliable framework across agencies. four, make permitting reform adorable -- a durable solution. permit rules should not shift with each administration.

congress must ensure agencies reform -- implement reform consistently and congress must invite oversight to prevent regulatory overreach. the u.s. supreme court's second decision provided much needed clarity on federal jurisdiction under the clean water act. however, the current conforming waters of the u.s. regulations still failed to align with the ruling, creating uncertainty and unnecessary delays. egc urges congress to hold agencies accountable for properly implementing it as intended. i want to share a few other the ways congress can help reduce clean water act 404 permitting delays. protect general permits, codify key exemptions such as for roadside ditches and stormwater features. expedite jurisdictional determinations and ensure mitigation requirements are reasonable, and backed by

mitigation credit availability. egc supports bipartisan permitting to reforms and urges congress to ensure agencies follow congressional intent, cutting red tape and limiting unnecessary litigation will help the liver critical infrastructure projects on time and on budget. most importantly, congress must provide certainty by ensuring that once environmental approvals are final agency actions, projects should not be threatened years later. thank you and i look forward to your questions. >> our next witness is mr. carl harris. he's the chairman of the board for the national association of homebuilders. he has been building homes for 40 years in wichita, kansas. we want to thank him for spending time with us this morning before he heads to the nahb international builder's show later this week in las

vegas. i will now recognize mr. harris or his opening statement. mr. harris: chairman capital, ranking member whitehouse and members of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. as a small business owner, i understand the immense challenges our builders experience. creating homes for americans starts with successful permitting. the u.s. has a shortfall of over 1.5 million housing units. the nations homebuilders are going to increasingly run into environmental permitting regulations for undeveloped land. we want to improve this regulatory process so that homebuilders can accomplish two fundamental goals. safeguarding the environment and creating attainable housing for americans.

regrettably, american homebuyers are suffering through record low housing attainability. 77% of buyers are not able to afford the median price of a new home. every small price increase has a sharp exclusionary effect. on average, every $1000 that gets added to a homes cost has -- locks out 106,000 households that will be priced out of the market. uncertainty and delays in permitting needlessly add costs to the construction process. which increases home prices, and pushes the american dream away from others in the market. while the clean water act serves as a crucial foundation for protecting the nation's waterways, the implementation of certain aspects of section 404 and mitigation bank approvals

are a major source of frustration for our members. let's consider a property owner who wants to build homes on undeveloped land. they want to know if water features on their property fall under federal jurisdiction. to determine this and avoid federal penalties, they need an improved -- approved -- obtaining agds are not prioritized under the army corps and take well over a year to obtain. homebuilders will roll the dice and tried to get a quicker preliminary jurisdiction determination, known as a pj d. a pjd is not appealable. it allows water features to be considered jurisdictional even if they are not covered by the clean water act. it can preclude the use of the nationwide permit. we should be able to tell

homebuilders if there are federal jurisdictional features on their property without forcing them into the problematic pjd. congress created the streamline nationwide permit under section 404, which is meant to be completed within 60 days for minimal impacts on water features. members routinely report it is taking almost a year to obtain these, which is rivaling the time it takes to complete the more rigorous individual permit required for larger environmental impacts. this timeline is unacceptable for permitting -- a permitting tool that is meant to be fast . digging deeper under the 404, we have the clean waters of the u.s. rule which has been subject to litigation and administration changes. this nonstop whiplash as confounded our members about which water features on their property are federally jurisdictional bull. -- jurisdictional.

relatively permanent water has been left undefined and open to interpretation based on which army corps district you are in. this lack of harmony promotes confusion and uncertainty. as part of the 404 permitting, billers are required to purchase litigation credits to offset the impacts to wetlands. a member in ohio told us that the credits for his project cost about 140,000 dollars, due to the 2:1 mitigation requirement. when you break it down per home lot, this adds $10,000 to the cost of a new home. a driving force behind these exorbitant credit prices is the shortage of litigation banks across the nation. it is challenging for bank sponsors to get -- come online which dissed incentivize this per super -- participation. this leads homeowners competing

against others -- leaves homeowners competing against others. the residential construction industry needs a more clear and predictable environmental permitting process. we need to prioritize the agd process, re-center the nationwide permit and encourage nation bank creation, that's all the ways we can ship up this problem. i think you for the opportunity. >> thank you very much. our next witness is brent booker. the general president of the international labor union of north america. he's a third-generation member of laborers local 795 in north albany, indiana and started his career in leona's mailroom. mr. booker served as a member of the construction department.

i welcome you and recognize you for your opening statement. mr. booker: my name is brent booker, general president of the laborers international union in north america. my union was founded over 120 years go by workers seeking a better life and the american dream. today, we are a strong, proud and diverse union representing over 130 5000 workers across the united states and canada. my workers go to work everyday building and maintaining our infrastructure. on the highways, bridges and tunnels to city skyscrapers to our vast energy sector, our members jobs touch every day life. boom and energy production has provided an abundance of jobs. our union has promoted and all of the above approach to energy production, renewables, oil and natural gas, hydro and nuclear because we build it all. as union laborers, we take pride in our work. where the safest and most productive in the world.

we get jobs done right on time, the first time, safely and on budget. we were involved in federal and state permitting. we embed ourselves within the projects regulatory process to ensure it is approved in the timely manner. with the folks you see a public utility hearings and community meetings. that's because in our business, predictability of projects is crucial. members move from job to job, stringing together the projects and, over many years, build their career. while we believe in a responsible approach to permanent infrastructure projects, it's clear that our process is broken. whether it is stalling or following countless frivolous lawsuits, leaving projects in limbo and our members wondering when they will get paid next. a project can be funded, permitted and ready to go and from nowhere, get hit with lawsuits and shut down. these projects are not political

to them. they are pathways to a middle last way of life, that include supporting wages, good health care benefits and the ability to one day retire with dignity. if our members don't go to work, they don't get paid. when a project is delayed months or even years, you try delivering that message to someone who has a mortgage payment due or has to buy school supplies for their kids. timelines must be included in any reform package. over the last decade, the pipeline industry, predominantly with natural gas, has provided thousands of laborers tens of millions of workouts. as we continue to expand into more advanced energy sources such as hydrogen and carbon capturing utilization, it's clear our training and skills hence will be vital to a clear energy future. now we are seeing the same issues within the renewable sector. offshore wind has been a tremendous contributor of jobs for our members. between the build outs to construction and installation of

turbines themselves, we are building offshore wind projects at a rate like never before, including america's first onshore wind project. the administrations halt has upended the win production and has led to projects completely withdrawing their construction plans, costing laborers their jobs. one project is a star board wind project. a project proposed 30 miles south of martha's vineyard, expected to power upwards of 6000 homes. this one hits home for me. i was proud to help negotiate and implement the national offshore wind agreement in 2022 on behalf of the building trades. this agreement would bring back thousands of good union jobs workers across the country. many of these projects are at risk of being terminated, causing us to lose significantly more jobs than we did on the keystone xl pipeline. once again, leaving our members high and dry. we must put an end to projects

being used as pawns on a play culture board. because it is american workers who pay the price. with a simple swipe of the pen or lack thereof in this case, these decisions impact the lives of the members we proudly represent and their communities. if you take away one thing for my testimony, let it be this. members go to work everyday, building the america we all use. whether it's turning the lights on in the morning, the meeting to work on the highway, it's likely that labor had a hand in it. this isn't about politics. it's about ensuring we continue our energy independence dominating a market that, when we don't compete, allows us to fall to our adversaries. it's about ensuring our members are able to go to a job that affords them the opportunity to be firmly entrenched in the middle class. to be clear, these are not just jobs. korea's week give our members and families a chance to thrive. they are paychecks to make sure american workers are contributing to their community and are not forced to rely on

the government to make ends meet. these projects are delivering on the promise of the american dream, which is why i thank you for granting me the opportunity to speak with you today. i look forward to your questions. thank you. >> thank you, mr. booker. i appreciate it. our last witness is nicole pavia. she is responsible for leading the organization's infrastructure team that worked in consulting. concentrating on energy and sustainability projects. she is a fellow duke university alumni. a blue devil. >> that's right. chairman capito, ranking member whitehouse and members of the committee, thank you. i am the director for clean energy infrastructure deployment.

catf has 30 years of experience in advancing policy and technology change to achieve a zero emissions high energy economy at affordable costs. in my role, i lead see atf's work -- catf's works -- one of our priority technologies is electricity transmission. long-range, intrastate and interregional transmission lines are critical pieces of our energy system. we are not building enough of these lines to meet reliability, security, affordability, load growth and clean generation needs. today, significant wholesale price differences between and within regions exist, due to transmission system congestion. regions afflicted by severe weather are not able to access enough electricity from

neighboring regions, leading to economic damage and, tragically, loss of life. in 2.6 terawatts of energy capacity, 95 of which is zero emitting or storage capacity. waiting for an opportunity to plug into the grid. the camilla diff effect of our inability to modernize and update our transmission system is reflected well in north american electric reliability operations latest long-term reliability assessment. most of the north american power system faces increasing resources and energy adequacy challenges. just as projections show increasing demand growth. given these urgent circumstances, why have long-range transmission investment and deployment rates decreased and not increased over the last decade? some have pointed to federal transmission permitting processes and environmental review processes under nepa

as key culprits. catf partnered to start building the evidentiary record around the drivers of delay in the federal transmission permitting process. we consolidated and analyzed publicly available data and interviewed developers, permitting officials and other expert stakeholders. as explained further in my written testimony, environmental reviews can certainly be approved. but fundamentally, we found that the provisions of nepa are not to be blamed -- not to blame for the most giving and delays. they are mostly process and resource oriented. most them from gaps in leadership and federal agency coordination, lack of steady appropriations for permitting elated tasks, info sufficient -- insufficient permitting expertise. and local opposition for

nationally beneficial projects. they often flare up throughout the course of the permitting process. another issue is the regulatory differences between jurisdictions through which long-distance transmission lines may pass. lines crossing state or tribal borders are not subject only to federal coordinating requirements but also the requirements of all state and tribal governments traversed. these requirement can be uncoordinated or duplicative. overall, prioritization of a modernized, secure and resilient transmission network will require a departure from the status quo. this includes reforms to be federal review process. it also requires addressing the key drivers of transmission delay, as identified in our report. in addition to speeding permitting timelines, we should be increasing specialized agency capacity to efficiently execute permitting.

we should consolidate signing and permitting authorities for interstate transmission projects in the national interest under the federal energy regulatory commission, just as they are for interstate, and natural gas pipeline projects. thank you, and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. thank you all very much. i will begin with a question for all witnesses. i believe i know the answer but both republican and democrat administrations over the last couple of decades have recognized the need to in -- address the environmental review process and those administrations have taken efforts to do so. despite these efforts, federal environmental review and permitting challenges persist. do you agree that congress must come together to develop a bipartisan bill to tackle these challengissues if we could go down the line? >> yes. >> yes. >> yes. >> yes. >> yes. >> good.

i thought i knew the answer to that. ms. picone's, a project can take years or even decades. what are the real world impact of this lengthy timeline for projects on consumers and goods and services? >> thank you. >> mr. harris, i will go to you with the same question. >> delays cause uncertainty and cause workforce instability. our contractors can't commit to hiring workers. they can't order materials when there are delays. on breaking ground for projects, often because they are tied up for years with lawsuits. the leas also drive up costs. they increase project -- delays also drive up costs. they increase project costs and make projects more expensive over time. delays increase investments. delays are preventing agc

members from building our quality of life and delivering safe projects that are going to benefit communities -- >> ok, cross country. mr. harris, your homebuilding. >> thank you, chairman. the cost of permitting adds to the cost of housing. and every time, as i said in my testimony, every time you raise the cost of a house $1000, you lock out 106,000 family units. that's substantial. you know, we speak about the value of home ownership. the value of homeownership is good for everyone. it stabilizes families. it stabilizes neighborhoods. it stabilizes communities, employee bases, volunteer basis.

homeownership is a public good. and in trying to increase or make better the processes for permitting, then we can decrease the costs. the time value of money for developers, homebuilders add to the cost of a house. right now, where we have seen the average cost of a house go up over $90,000 in the last two years, we have locked so many people out of the american dream. >> i know there is a shortage as well prayed we can get into that may be later. i want to ask about judicial review. it came up and almost everybody's testimony. many projects are targeting litigation throughout the process. the results in legal process delays can be enough to stop a project, which happened with our pipeline in west virginia. mr. booker, will you describe some of your members experience with litigation effort?

you have your permits in hand and then you can't go forward. you outlined it in your statement, saying you can't pay the worker if you can't move forward. can you expand on that a little bit? >> as i said. you don't get paid unless you do work. and you have to have a project to do that. you also can't just pull a laborer off-the-shelf and say your project starts next friday. we have to prepare for that and train. we have joint labor-management training depending on the project. whether it is a pipeline or offshore wind, we have to train people to do that. in order to do that, we have to have predictability. this litigation, unpredictability creates chaos and it does not allow us to get the safest, most skilled, most productive workers if we don't know when the job will start or if we are expecting it to start in a month and it gets delayed by 2, 3, 4 months. that is causing chaos in the industry.

also, it's causing our members not to get paid. and that's the biggest thing. for us, it's about jobs and getting people their paycheck. >> ms. pilconis, is there a specific stage of the court process that is particularly challenging or is it the whole? you mentioned he could be as long as six years. it could probably be longer than that if you drag it through court. >> correct. we know that nepa is the most litigated environmental statute. we know the lawsuit number being filed is increasing. we know it can take up to 4.5 years to make your way through the litigation process where it is resolved at the appellate level. lawsuits can stop projects that have broken ground in their tracks through the form of injunctions. studies that have been done, through an eis or ea, those

decisions can be sent back to the agencies, which is delaying breaking ground. essentially, we keep having do overs, even after you have received project approval. there is really good language that congress and this committee has already passed in statute to put limits on litigation. map 21 has a 150 day statute of limitation window. we are recommending that be applied to all critical infrastructure projects. there is also great language in fast 41. that is only applicable to a small number of projects that opt into the program. that language requires challengers to raise concerns early in the process, where there is a lot of opportunity for public comment after -- and for working these things out on the front end and not dragging projects into long litigation years after. >> before i go to mr. senator whitehouse, i will say, you say if you are sending it back to

agencies for reconsideration, you are running into the problem that ms. pavia said came out in their survey. which is, i don't want to say lack of expertise, not enough capacity to move these through the different agencies quickly. senator whitehouse. >> thank you for mentioning project labor agreements and we have a project labor agreement with one of the offshore develop ers. things get built on time, on budget and done right. the american submarines are built in buildings in rhode island. thank you for flagging that. with respect to the seven offshore wind projects that are now at a standstill, how many jobs do you estimate those would have supported? >> thousands. from what the actual work in the

water that will be, from the port of grades, the harbor of grades, we are building vessels in this country to support offshore wind. it's in the tens of thousands. thousands of building traits jobs and tens of thousands of related jobs to that. >> and when an ongoing project is put on a standstill, do you have a sense of what that means for the consumer at the end of the day? >> we are losing power in the country. we need a baseload power and predictability in power. not only are my members not being able to work everyday, we are not able to plug the power into the grid. >> you mentioned discrepancies between existing treatment of pipelines under the natural gas act and the existing treatment of transmission lines under the federal power act. could you, real quickly, let me know where those areas are and maybe for the record, put a list together of where you think

those should be harmonized? >> sure. there are differences between authority over natural gas pipelines and transmission lines. the natural gas act, section seven gives ferc full siding and authority over natural gas pipelines. the power act in section 216 creates national interest electric transmission corridor's that can be creative through the department of energy. ferc is eliminated authority to site projects within those specific core doors. the department of energy is going to the process of designating those core doors. there are only three of them so far. what we see from the differences between the natural gas regulations and the transmission regulations is that -- >> if you don't mind making a list. sorry, i have to use all of my time on this one. >> the transmission -- >> thank you you.

mr. harrell, you say looming transmission shortage -- you recommend permitting new lines will be necessary. you have suggested there are ways to move more electrons over existing power lines. how much growth can we have in grid availability from moving more electrons over the same lines versus how much do we need to solve by building new? >> thank you for your leadership in these areas, we need both when push comes to shove. the scale of the amount of work we will have to do over the coming decades here is immense. new transmission and increasing the capacity of -- >> where the big progress is going to be made, is it going to be more in building new or will it be allowing electrons to run more smoothly? >> given the scale, we need to

build significantly more infrastructure. >> you don't have a sense of which -- electron efficiency is three parts -- >> 75% it's when he 5%, we will need to build out more infrastructure. >> that's what i figured. a couple of things in my last minute that you can respond to as questions for the record. i have come to despise interagency processes. i can't stand it anymore. it's a terrible excuse for the executive branch to dawdle and fiddle around and move at the speed of -- it's a place where things go to die an accountability free zone. whatever was in the area and when it fails, everybody walks away and nobody was responsible for that. if you have thoughts on what we could do in congress to turn interagency process into an

efficient mechanism for coordinating these agencies which is what we need, rather than an executive branch excuse hole for not getting things done and not having anybody accountable for that failure, i am happy to hear from all five of you on that one. my last thing is very often, we saw this particularly in offshore wind, we got the first steel in the water in the because we had engaged with obviously interested stakeholders right from the get-go. too often, the federal regulatory and state regulatory process begins with the filing from somebody who wants to develop something who hasn't lifted a finger to go out and talk to the folks who will be affected. the first offshore wind permit that was sought at the federal level was catastrophically bad in that respect. they hadn't even talked about

which direction you should array your equipment. it was just jam it through on the strength of the pressure of their investors. if you could also talk to me, to the degree of precision you can about in what regulatory processes there should be a filing requirement stating what you have done to identify the stakeholders and saying what you have done to run the project by them and get their preliminary input so you start in a better place. if we can get those two things, i would appreciate it. >> senator cramer. >> i'm going to get that last six minutes and send it to all my republican friends so they know why i like working with sheldon whitehouse. [laughter] thank you all. thank you, chairman and wrecking member white house for having this really important hearing so

early in the term. a lot of the work we are doing takes a while. i'm going to start with you, really all of you, but you spoke most thoroughly on the topic not anywhere in my prep, but it gets me right to this issue of the capital intensity. even to the point of workers. labor can't sit on the sidelines and wait for the years to go by. the supreme court, either you or mr. harris referenced the fact that the corps of engineers hasn't adequately responded to that ruling. there was west virginia. major questions.

all of these are such clear messages that bureaucracy does not have the power they think they have. the fact that it wasn't clear enough in the definition of jurisdictional waters, don't worry about those 80,000 permits. you referenced the process. why do we even have to seek determination? we don't put a highway patrolman on every car on the interstate

just in case one of them speaks. where am i wrong on this? >> you can ask one person if something is jurisdictional and you might get two different answers. for the construction community, we need clarity. it is very difficult to move forward. not getting a permit has very significant penalties so the consequences and run does -- what is at risk is huge. it did provide some guardrails and clarity. as mr. harris said, there are

very unclear terms and that is what is causing a lot of confusion. >> thank you, senator. along with clarity, we need consistency. consistency between the core districts. if we could get true definition of the terms we are talking about, our developers could know when they can take reasonable risk before they make a tremendous investment in property and start moving the dirt. >> one thing is for sure is that can't be the same way they were before. there are certainly many fewer jurisdictional waters then they were previous. as long as there was a 1% chance , you are almost obligated to your shareholders, customers and

workers to obey the law. and i seek their permission to allow you to obey the law, which is mind-boggling. i only have a minute left. on the electricity side because this is the hard work. i think one of the challenges and things we oftentimes forget and this gets to cross purposes is that electricity is the generation, transmission, distribution in a largely monopoly world of electric consumption. where it gets very iffy is that somebody determines those rates. there are regulators that determine those rates. transmission and generation being built out absence of planning process by the local utility can put the taboo on the

wrong people really easily. we have to find a solution, we have to find a federal backstop but i think to the ranking member's point, linear siting for transition lines should be the same for any other linear infrastructure. i think we can do that. we do have to recognize those state regulators and the governors. we will talk about it in another round if we get a chance. >> thank you, senator kelly. >> thank you, madam chair. i'm glad we are holding this hearing today to discuss the long-overdue need to fundamentally re-examine how the federal government handles the permitting process. there are very good reasons why

our bedrock environmental laws exist. the clean air act has been shown to prevent childhood asthma and respiratory problems. clean water act makes sure sources of drinking water are not full of unhealthy pollutants. reviewing the long-term impacts on federal land ensures that we protect our national parks for future generations. i believe there is bipartisan agreement that having these protections for public health and for our environment are an appropriate thing to do. the question then is whether our current framework allows us to accomplish the goals of these bedrock statutes without needlessly delaying common sense projects. a few years ago, i traveled to taiwan to visit with some businesses considering expanding

their microchip manufacturing but also the clean energy businesses into the state of arizona. while i was touring one of their tech parks on the northern side of the island, our guide pointed out that right in the middle of the park was the government permitting office. our guide shared that anytime a company needs a new air or water permit or land-use permit or anything else, they could go to that office and the staff would help them get the permit they needed. by contrast, they shared how confusing the u.s. permitting process was. why did they have to work with the city or the county government on the land-use permit and talk to two or three different federal government agencies about air, land, and water permits? these businesses are prepared to

invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the united states and create thousands of great paying jobs but our permitting process led them to delay or scale back the planned investments. it is not that these businesses wanted to skirt clean air and clean water protections. they just wanted to be able to understand what the requirements were and have certainty that once they met those requirements they would not need to deal with years of lawsuit. so, at a more macrolevel, can you describe how federal permitting processes create uncertainty for businesses looking to make investments in the united states and what are the opportunity costs for our current permitting system? >> thank you for your leadership

on critical infrastructure. time is money when push comes to shove. ultimately, companies are evaluating how the process impacts their investment. today, the process is particularly in predict people so there is a wide range of factors. the desperate need to provide more certainty in the process, to show us the sideboards of how long it could take and how do we maximize the resources being invested. a great example is the chips and sciences act and the regulatory reforms needed to build out and catalyze those chips. that allowed private developers to move resources factor -- faster. >> thank you.

as i mentioned, most of the economic development, the projects that were attracting our for clean energy industries and things like microchip and battery, we as a nation look to encourage more clean energy manufacturing, how does our permitting system affect development? >> thank you. in the context of transmission permitting, uncertainty is in the permitting process hinder the interconnection of clean and zero emitting and storage capacity resources. as i mentioned, we found that 2600 gigawatts of clean energy is sitting in interconnection cues today. the challenge is to unleash that potential. >> it is in a queue because the

permitting is held up. >> that's right. the permitting process is not keeping up with the deployment rates of transmission to deploy those resources. >> thank you, let's fix that. >> senator curtis. >> thank you for holding this hearing. as i have been sitting here today, the best analogy i can think of is it feels like we are all on a train and everybody has the answers. we get take these five witnesses and the few members that are here and good law office in a room and we could get to this. there is hardly a topic discussed more in washington and acknowledged as bipartisan yet we can't get it across the finish line so thanks for your work and working with our house colleagues. i pledge my support to help you in this matter. mr. harrell, i would like to

give you a shout out for the work you do in your organization. it has been very important in my understanding of these issues and i want to talk a little bit about utah. utah strives to be a leader on this. we have operation gigawatts. geothermal it would be hard to find an energy source that finds better agreement among everybody that this is something that is important and needs to develop and yet we struggle with permitting. what additional measures for the federal government take to support state led efforts in expanding geothermal and estate state like utah particularly? >> thank you, senator. thank you for your leadership on these issues. it underscores a really key point in utah is a great example nationwide of our federal, state, and local entities need to be synced up in the right way

to drive new economic opportunities. project a gigawatt focusing on how to leverage and grow new geothermal, nuclear, hydrogen developments in the state. i think there are four key things that could be helpful for the federal process. under the gmail -- geothermal side, removing the duplicate have analysis required for geothermal exploration, we should streamline that process. there is a bipartisan bill considering that. if a site is feasible, it still has to move under an environmental process for the generation projects. let's take the peer exploration analysis out of it and unleash innovators in that space. there was a lot we can do to streamline permitting at existing facilities. i know your status looking significantly at deploying small module reactors and micro reactors that could unlock

significant development in the state. we have to resolve some of these frictions with federalism on pipelines and transmission to tap building out infrastructure for new hydrogen for example in the state. there are key things that will solve problems nationwide and help unlock the utah strategies. >> you have talked about transmission a lot here. we are not making progress. i'm going to stereotype republicans and say we do struggle with this in the whole aspect of permitting reform. what is it we need to know and how do we get this done? >> it is growing clean infrastructure as a whole.

this scale of rising demand, the size of the texas grid at a minimum. we will connect to a lot of resources in place. providing more clarity. there are multiple transmission projects that have nearly turned 21. >> i would like to invite my republican and democratic colleagues to work on this. mr. harris, i was the mayor of my city. when i think of building regulations, i tend to think of city, county, and state regulations.

i think a lot of people don't understand that federal adds another layer of regulations on this. can you speak to the federal layer that people may not see? >> as a recovering mayor myself -- [laughter] part of a 12 step program, recognizing i know i have a problem and there was a higher power that is not me, i currently sit on the planning and zoning commission. another 24% of the cost of a new home directly related to government regulation, that local and state governments share in that responsibility to make sure that the permitting process at all levels is efficient. >> i will give you a quick response. >> where you can delegate or assign responsibility to the states to streamline the process or where states can take over for permitting. many states have done that.

that can reduce duplication. >> thanks. >> senator padilla. >> thank you and ranking member whitehouse for this timely hearing. in california, we talk a lot about permitting, but it is important to note that it is not just a bureaucratic hurdle. there is a premise for the process. it is a foundation of responsible infrastructure, energy production and environmental protection. they are not mutually exclusive and they've got to go together. there are a number of important bipartisan reforms that congress should pass. i also believe the committee needs to grapple with about the

challenge exacerbated. federal agencies have the staffing levels. what we have seen in the early days of this trump administration and was freezing and firing at unprecedented levels the workforce we rely on. you touched on this in your testimony. >> in our study, which we conducted over the course of 2023 and 2024, we heard it from developers and agencies, a lack

of specific permitting and transmission knowledgeable staff available at the agencies and field office for these agencies. we talked to a developer who said that if they couldn't catch one person at a field office, that would add months to their permitting timeline. the importance of staffing is critical. you can set timelines for things, you can set deadlines, but at the end of the day if there aren't people available to do the work, it is hard to get the work done. >> it certainly seems that by shrinking the workforce we are doing the opposite of achieving energy independence or energy balance. as some of you may know, i'm a member of this committee as well as energy and natural resources. i come at it from both angles

area the commitment and the priority of streamlining the process to meet the energy demand and ensure the reliability of the electrical grid. transmission is an essential part of a reliable and affordable grid and it is often the factor constraining new grid interconnection requests. according to the nar see, it poses grid reliability particularly with a growing economy and growing population. in your testimony, you point to the misalignment in requirements between different jurisdictions with permitting authority as a key factor in slowing down transmission permitting more specifically. what requiring interregional planning that insures regions jointly address needs and

priority projects minimize misalignment? what are the recommendations might you have? >> i do think that that would help. longer-term regional transmission planning processes and cost allocation. i do think that thinking about the affordability, reliability and other challenges that might be faced would encourage longer distance transmission lines. i do think that these coordination efforts will help resolve a few of these issues. transmission permitting jurisdiction really lies with the states. there needs to be state to state harmonization and state and tribal harmonization along with a general harmonization of state permitting policies with federal transmission permitting policies.

>> just underscoring the biggest point of all as we all have to work together. federal is federal, state is state, but ultimately we are physically and legally interconnected. thank you for your thoughtfulness. >> thank you. senator ricketts. >> thank you. for holding today's important hearing and thank you to the witnesses for being here today to share your experiences on what we need to do to reform our federal permitting process. i believe we can make common sense permitting reform to unleash the projects for the american energy infrastructure, homebuilding, agriculture, although sort of things while protecting our environment. permitting reform is about modernizing our regulatory system to ensure that we are deploying projects efficiently, not about undercutting

environmental standards. regulatory delay is a hidden tax on americans. i serve -- in nebraska, the u.s. army corps of engineers finds itself in the middle of all of these important policies in addition to maintaining waterways. conflicting statutes like the flood control act and the endangered species act pit protecting human life and property against protecting wildlife and the environment. complicated court history and administrative actions have made even the most common sense projects and anticipated

flooding difficult to permit. it has compounded a difficult situation and created new programming. situations like this can be found all across the country. we do not have to settle for years long court battles with backlogs and statutes at the expense of natural resources and safety. they reformed it to mandate timelines. the fra streamlined the use of categorical exclusions. as governor, one of the things i did to help streamline this was implemented process, i know we can't get through any sort of hearing without me mentioning this because this is one of the

things we did that shouldn't be controversial. it is about streamlining the process. we can't change environmental regulations at the state but we can look at the process that is 110 steps long and cut it down to 22 or cut the time to lay down to just 65 days. those kind of reforms are possible thanks to the great staff we had in nebraska. one of the folks, jim macy, is the region seven epa administrator. the point is we can do this. you talked about some of the conflicting regulations agencies are doing. i mentioned the flood control act and the endangered species act. can you give me examples of laws or regulations that are

conflicting that we may need to address to provide a clear congressional intent so the courts will have that when they are making these decisions? >> i think that clear congressional intent is most important, having clear statutory language that lays out congress's intent, making sure that is carried out and implemented by the agencies and for congress to be able to step in000000000000 -- step in when agencies are showing overreach. as far as where there are conflicts, i think the overarching statute involving resource agencies to analyze and assess what the impact of a proposed major action will be. the ideas having coordination and communication and discussion about how these programs align so the you can do concurrent

reviews instead of sequential reviews and end up having the monitoring, the studies, the work you are doing satisfy all of the programs so that you can reach one final document. >> can you think of specific conflicting laws we need to address or specific agency regulations we need to address in this process? >> what>> comes to mind for me is not so much conflict between the laws but inconsistent interpretation of the laws at the federal agency level and making sure that the application is consistent so that you don't have diverging different opinions. with recent court decisions and executive actions, it is not clear what the long-term role cq will play in implementing

regulations. we need to be sure that one federal agency's are carrying it out through their own agency regulations that we don't have inconsistency. that is an area we are focused on moving forward and ensuring that agencies carry it out consistently as a statute. >> we would all agree consistency is important when it comes to interpretation. is there something this committee can do along those lines thinking about reform, things we up to be putting into the statutes to accomplish that? >> i think making sure that terms are clear, as mr. harris talked about with the clean water act we have language in the regulation that is being inconsistently applied. great work was done in the fiscal responsibility act to be clear you are analyzing reasonably foreseeable effects, looking at those that are technologically and economically feasible.

congress having oversight. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. chairman. in california, the top issue is housing. the lack of housing, lack of affordable housing is fundamentally a supply problem. we don't have anywhere near enough housing. we can move people off the streets into shelter but if we are not building more housing there will be new people taking their place on the streets. my question mr. harris is what can we do to accelerate the building of housing that is affordable? how much of the challenge informs -- in terms of the timeliness or lack of timeliness and approving new projects is a federal problem and how much of it is a state and local problem?

if it is a state and local problem, what can we do to incentivize local government and agencies to get to new housing quicker? >> thank you very much for the question. we believe it is a supply problem and that the inventory is driving up the inflationary cost of shelter. we think that of the 24% of the cost of a new home is related to government regulation, about a quarter of that is probably state and local, i mean is federal. the remainder is state and local. they are handling the heaviest part of that. when i talk to lieutenant governors and governors who are saying, we need more housing in our state, i encourage them to look at the policies and procedures that they have in regard to housing.

have they updated their housing plan and put barriers in place to keep the growth the federal government used highway dollars to get the speed limit regulated. they used federal dollars to raise the drinking age. i believe if the federal government was to look at incentivizing these communities and applications for grants or the federal dollars that flow to municipalities, if they have consistent pro-housing, progrowth opportunities, that would incentivize them to do that. >> thank you. i look forward to working with you to identify how we can facilitate at the federal and local levels to get approval for

the housing more quickly. i wanted to ask you about offshore wind. we have two big offshore wind projects. i'm concerned about the rash of cancellations we are seeing in offshore wind projects in the last couple years. and executive order blocking leasing for offshore wind projects. i don't understand the point of that. it is going to reduce a lot of energy and kill a lot of jobs. is this suspension of leasing just designed to be a gift to the oil industry? why would we want to stop offshore wind and the jobs and the energy it creates? >> i'm probably not the right guy to answer that question but what i will say is killing of offshore wind jobs is killing of american jobs.

this president, this administration talked about creating american jobs, the american dream and then we start picking winners and losers of renewables versus oil and gas versus nuclear versus hydro, the end result of that if a political appointee is deciding who wins and who loses at the end of the day, it is the american worker who loses if one industry is chosen after the other. we support all of the above. i would encourage this administration to not pick winners and losers in the energy sector. offshore wind has made sense on the east coast and west coast. it is an economically viable energy source creating good american jobs. >> thank you. finally, on the transmission interconnection issue, this seems to me one of the biggest

areas where we could really move forward with a lot of new energy projects and clean energy projects. last year, california's grid operator stated that the interconnection queue contains three times the generating capacity to meet the states energy goals. how do we get that transmission working? a lot of projects that apply to join the grid, they end up essentially dissolving even before getting the opportunity. is that because of the delays and access to the grid? or is that about the projects that are not financially viable and don't have funding? what do we do to get the grid working so that a new project can come online?

>> i think it is a little bit of both. there are a lot of projects that apply to the queue to get in line. they may not be 100% ready for deployment. i think this all stems from a process that is very long because of a lack of transmission that is available on the other side and there is a kind of chicken and egg problem as well. you don't want to build a transmission line if you don't there will be generation on the other side of the line. you don't want to put new generation into the queue, if you don't think there is a transmission line that will be built. i think we have to address interconnection specifically. >> these issues in the humboldt area where they have an offshore wind object they are trying to figure out that chicken and egg problem. it is one of the windiest places on earth. there are some deepwater challenges to that venue but

then they don't have the transmission capacity. i yield back. >> interestingly enough until a couple of weeks ago i was on the other side of this question as a lieutenant governor working in economic development. i can tell you the frustration local and state leaders have with federal regulators is epic. because one regulator may have a different opinion than another regulator. i would ask the question of why we are having this discussion

because the regulatory regime would be built to protect the environment and other important factors has become so large and unwieldy that it is in conflict with other priorities like the idea of made in america, about creating more jobs in this country, about building a resilient supply chain in this country for our economic and national security and everything from energy to computer chips to pharmaceuticals, whatever that might be. the topic of time is money has come up. the same time is money has come up several times which is so true because we know if you lack a predictable timeframe for doing things, many people just won't invest. they will take the risk of making those investments, whether that is building chips or data centers or power plants.

i can tell you that seeing this happen so many times where we had the chips act for example, we need to build chips, very much supported the federal government on a bipartisan basis. it extends out the time frame from which you can build the fabs. we say it is a national security priority, but these regulations get in the way. i left a community where they are currently discussing whether or not they will have enough energy to meet the demand of made in america. and they can't know whether they can build the power plants for the supply chain. that is the regulations and then the regulators and time frames. the idea that literally slowing these things down is actually contrary to our economic,

national security, and environmental interests. unless you have enough energy whether it comes from gas-fired power plants or wind and solar, that taking a longer time to build those means you can't diminish -- decommission coal power plants because you don't have anything in the energy supply chain. if you accept my context for my concern, i would love for every one of you to tell me a couple things that we should do to fix that. >> thank you for your question. timelines are important. you did great work with the fiscal responsibility act. it comes down to accountability. they are in the fiscal responsibility act, the

requirement for agencies to report to congress, having oversight over that and making sure you are getting that information and understanding why deadlines are being missed. there are actual penalties for missing deadlines. i think having that apply to more critical infrastructure projects, creating the permitting dashboard with -- which creates what are the milestones, when are they happening? there are only a few amount of projects that are on the dashboard so having that applied to more projects. i think making use of general permits. there are ways to make sure that things are getting done more quickly for these categorical exclusions, general permits. >> this is not an around the edges issue.

there are a lot of implications. we have had environmental implications put in place. we have to see how these things sync up together to modernize the system and make step change reform because i think it is clear the status quo is not serving our economic and core environment. >> i would like to say that calling a tool or permit efficient and predictable doesn't make it efficient and predictable. we need something that will be efficient and predictable every time. >> i think we have to require agencies to make a decision up or down. we have to put timelines on litigation. if people are working, the decision has been made by the agency, litigations can't stop a project moving forward. >> i would second the use of the

permitting dashboard. we can continue to leverage it more fully and i would harken back to what i set about staffing at the local and federal capacity for permitting expertise. it is going to be really important. i think more can be done in the capacity space. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you panel for being here today. this is a subject that vexes people in both parties at all levels of government. i'm going to start with permit by rule, which is something president trump has touted in an executive order. i have a bill that would authorize permit by rule. my cosponsor is mr. budd, it is called the full responsibility and expedited enforcement act.

my question is how can implementing permit by rule streamline federal permitting while ensuring robust environmental protections and what steps should congress take to ensure agencies follow up on these reforms? >> thank you and thank you for your leadership on this issue. this is the type of think big item. how can we shift to a build and comply structure rather than this arduous multistep process? projects face unnecessary case by case reviews. they aren't giving us better benefits for the environment. it is just driving the length of the review process and driving up costs. agencies are going to need to set out the rules of the road which your bill lays out in the early stages and congress is going to need to codify that. this can't be a structure. this shift is a big change.

it can't go on the abs and changes of an administration. we need a regular system just regulatory system that works for the next 40 years, not the next four years. we can take a significant chunk of projects often streamline for those that have like characteristics, are built in the same type of areas, or need to comply in the same way. >> i agree. i don't think it is for every situation, but for a very standard situation that has consistent replicable compliance standards, it might work well. in wyoming, we have a housing shortage. this power is going to come in

and have construction job demands that are going to require housing. i'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this issue given your thoughts on small housing building. >> thank you for the question. i think the community needs to decide where the housing needs to go and work together with builders and the federal authorities about what is the most appropriate for that. you reduce those barriers and you will have more builders want to build homes wherever they build on the housing ladder, whether it is temporary housing, apartments, first-time homebuyers, move up housing. that takes the cooperation. real estate development is really community development and

how we can all work together to get these houses built in the community. >> so, how can streamlining permitting help homeowners? >> it will lower the price because the cost of regulation continues to drive. so, if i have to jump through a lot of hoops to develop a piece of land, that increases the cost per lot that i will need to know that home. eventually, that will be passed on to the homebuyer. each one of those regulations continues to work through that. the permitting process needs to be well defined, consistent, everything. >> thank you. i'm going to ask one more restaurant changing subjects to something called class six. i suspect may be mr. harrell this is for you but anyone of you is welcome to weigh in.

states can expedite permitting by implementing employment. wyoming successfully applied for and received this class six primacy but i'm told that the epa has pending class permitting while only four have been granted. for any of you who are familiar with class six, what reforms can ensure that states seeking class six can advocate the assess more quickly and with greater certainty? >> class six primacy is an area where you're shifting responsibility to those closer on the ground and the law hires them to have the same.

there is probably no better example that shows that just throwing monarch yet the problem isn't fixing it between the infrastructure bill and annual appropriations. we have to set clear timelines, we need to be more transparent about where we are in the process. it needs to be a more iterative process. that needs to be upfront. it was exciting to see west virginia get clear here recently and there were a bunch of states in the pipeline. federal regulators can focus on more complicated projects. >> it is proven successful for states that have already received classics primacy? >> your state of north dakota

are two great examples. wyoming and north dakota are moving to these projects and under your where the federal process has 150 plus projects in the pipeline. >> thank you and thank you to our committee. appreciate you being here today. >> [indiscernible] >> we are deciding whether this is the end of the hearing or not. [laughter] the chair was kind enough to give me the gavel for purposes of moving through the members, but it is not clear that i have the gavel for the purposes of closing out the hearing. in the spirit of bipartisanship,

i'm waiting for that signal. if you would all just stand by for a minute. good to go? ok, i have clearance to proceed. first of all, thank you. this was a very helpful hearing. the response from mr. harris, you mentioned the community making the decision about where the housing should go. that aligns with what i said earlier about it would be helpful if there was right at the very front it requirement of who are the stakeholders and how is the engagement already? so it is done up front and center and here we go. [laughter] the chairman is here. i won't get in trouble. >> my apologies for missing the last few minutes. i think we have a lot of commonality here, a lot of good ideas and a lot of thoughts that

i think are going on the same lines. i think we should think big and come down from big to where we can meet the sweet spot. like senator curtis said, we have been talking about this for years and we haven't quite gotten their. i'm committed and i know you are to work on this together. that is our keyword today. with no further questions, i would like to thank the witnesses and all of my colleagues for their participation. senators who wish to submit written questions have until 4:00 p.m. wednesday march 5. written responses are due back no later than 5:00 p.m. march 19 and will be cemented to the record. the hearing record will remain open until march 21 and i would hope you would submit suggestions that you might have heard today or other suggestions. the public will be allowed to submit comments and materials to the hearing record by sending these documents.

the email address is accessible on the committee's website on our contact page. with that, the steering is adjourned. thanks. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> saturdays, watch the 10 week series first 100 days. we will explore the early months of presidential administrations with historians, authors, and through the c-span archives. we learn about accomplishments and setbacks and how events

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