Senator says permitting 'bogged down,' asks utility for Section 106 cost estimate

An unnamed senator criticized federal permitting procedures as "bogged down" and asked Mr. McDonald, a utility representative, to estimate the direct costs tied to the Section 106 review process for a multistate project and how those costs are ultimately passed to American energy consumers.

The senator, speaking during the meeting, framed the exchange with an anecdote about his father—an aeronautical engineering graduate from Purdue University who flew a B-29 in World War II—to underline his point that Americans can both "protect and move forward at the same time." He warned of an "energy meltdown" and said the permitting process is "ungodly expensive" and "absolutely a time consumer."

"We absolutely should always continue to ask ourselves, and I wrote it down, is can we protect and move forward at the same time?" the senator said. He added that the permitting process is "so absolutely bogged down. It's unbelievable."

He pressed Mr. McDonald for a specific accounting: "Can you provide an estimate of the direct cost, personnel, survey work, legal expenses, on and on and on, that are solely attributable to section 1 0 6, a process, for a multistate project and how that cost is ultimately passed down to the American energy consumers. To put it plainly, can you give me an estimate of how much American taxpayers are paying for the federal government's overcomplicated process. Please, sir." The transcript records the question in full as delivered.

Mr. McDonald replied that his utility is not a very large one in the national context and offered to consult counterparts and provide a more detailed estimate for the record. "So our utility isn't quite the largest utility. We're, in fact, pretty small on the in the grand scheme of things. We can certainly visit with some of our counterparts, and I can get you a more reasonable estimate for that answer for the record, if that's acceptable," he said.

The senator closed the exchange by reiterating his view that the process is costly and slow and urging officials to acknowledge and fix the problem. The transcript records no formal vote or directive stemming from the exchange; Mr. McDonald committed only to provide a follow-up estimate for the record.

Context and limitations: the transcript repeatedly uses the phrase "Section 106" and the senator framed his concerns as both a matter of preserving historic resources and of reducing delays that he said could raise costs for energy consumers. The meeting record does not identify the senator by name, does not provide a date for the meeting, and does not include a written cost estimate in the record; those details were not specified in the transcript.