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Senate committee hears overview of Energy Permitting Reform Act aimed at speeding oil, gas, minerals and transmission approvals
Summary
At a meeting of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, an unidentified speaker introduced S.4753, the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, describing provisions to expand leasing, end a pause on LNG exports, impose agency deadlines and reshape transmission cost rules.
At a meeting of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, an unidentified speaker introduced S.4753, the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, saying the bipartisan bill would accelerate development of oil, gas and critical minerals on federal lands and waters and revise electric transmission planning.
The bill, the speaker said, would "boost American energy and mineral production," lower costs for families and strengthen economic and national security. The speaker described several core provisions: changes to onshore leasing and permitting, a package of Gulf of Mexico lease sales, deadlines for approval of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export applications, and new tests for approving transmission projects.
According to the speaker, S.4753 would require the Department of the Interior to lease acreage "that oil and gas producers actually want," and would remove duplicative federal permitting requirements for drilling on state and private land. The speaker also said the bill mandates at least one oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico each year from 2025 through 2029 (five sales total), with each sale offering at least 60,000,000 acres.
On LNG exports, the speaker said the bill would "permanently end President Biden's pause on new liquefied natural gas exports," and would require the Secretary of Energy to act on LNG export applications within 90 days; if the secretary fails to act within that deadline, the application would be deemed approved, the speaker said.
The speaker framed mineral access as another priority, saying the bill "fixes the Rosemont decision" by authorizing mill sites on federal land "whether or not that land has minerals," and described the change as removing a legal tactic that opponents have used to block mineral access for decades.
The legislation would also change how transmission projects are approved and paid for, the speaker said. Under the bill, the Secretary of Energy would no longer have authority to designate national interest electric transmission corridors; developers would need to demonstrate to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that a proposed line "meaningfully improves electric reliability," and FERC would be prohibited from allocating costs to customers who receive little or no benefit from a new line. The bill would require FERC to consider a specified list of quantifiable customer benefits in its decision-making and would add guardrails to the commission's forthcoming interregional transmission planning rulemaking.
The speaker said the bill protects the discretion of the country's existing transmission planning regions and is guided by three principles: improve reliability, avoid new subsidies, and improve the status quo for states, customers and landowners. The speaker thanked the committee chairman and staff for lengthy negotiations and said committee members have requested further work on hydropower.
The unidentified speaker urged committee members to support S.4753. The provided transcript includes no formal motion or recorded vote on the bill.
