Oil and gas industry praises Trump permitting reform

The Trump administration on Tuesday announced new permitting reforms after years of the oil and gas industry calling on administrations and Congress to streamline a burdensome process.

The Department of Energy published an interim final rule rescinding all National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations. It also published new NEPA guidance procedures that “replace outdated rules with clear deadlines, restore agency authority, and put us back on the path to energy dominance, job creation, and commonsense action,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.

The NEPA reforms restore the DOE’s role “originally envisioned by Congress – informing agency decision makers, not needlessly obstructing the development of critical infrastructure,” Deputy Energy Secretary James Danly said. “We’re eliminating the accretion of decades of unnecessary procedure and reestablishing a legally sound permitting regime that is disciplined, predictable, and fast. Agencies finally have the authority to conduct reviews efficiently, avoid duplicative reviews, and deliver timely decisions consistent with the law.”

The proposed reforms come after the Council on Environmental Quality coordinated an interagency effort “to simplify NEPA compliance, lower construction costs, eliminate years-long delays, and ensure environmental reviews can no longer be used to stall American energy production and infrastructure development.”

The changes came roughly five months after President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing agency heads to review all existing regulations that impose undue regulatory burdens on domestic energy production. It also reverses “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations” Trump said restricted domestic energy development, reliable and affordable electricity generation, cost jobs and caused energy costs to skyrocket. The order was necessary, Trump said, because it’s in “the national interest to unleash America's affordable and reliable energy and natural resources, … restore American prosperity … and rebuild our Nation's economic and military security.”

The NEPA reforms include eliminating outdated agency procedures, many of which hadn’t been revised since the 1980s; reducing environmental assessment report completion time limitations; implementing strict deadlines and page limits for reports; providing clear direction related to verified preexisting scientific studies “and not contemplating wildly unfathomable scenarios that they do not have legal authority to address;” increasing transparency and streamlining several processes, among other measures.

New guidelines include statements from a recent Supreme Court decision in Seven County, limiting requirements for agencies to analyze Greenhouse Gas effects, which “curtails radical climate change analysis associated with activities outside agency jurisdiction.”

Those in the industry said the president was delivering on his promise.

“President Trump promised to unleash American energy and is delivering … by treating oil and natural gas as the national asset it is, not a liability,” Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association, told The Center Square. “The Administration is prioritizing domestic energy production and this yields infrastructure investment and grows jobs, which benefits every American as well as our allies worldwide who depend on us to deliver the energy security and stability. Bold energy leadership like this creates greater regulatory certainty, continues sound environmental stewardship and cements our position as the world’s trusted energy leader.”

The new NEPA guidelines “will make our permitting process clear and efficient, bringing predictability and agility to the practice,” Ed Longanecker, president of the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association, told The Center Square. “Streamlining the process allows our industry to do what it does best – deliver safe, reliable energy to Americans while strengthening energy security, driving economic growth and creating jobs. This historic, interagency effort will also help America maintain its world class environmental standards while spurring energy development when we, and our allies, need it most.”

“The Trump Administration took a major step in removing roadblocks and spurring capital investments in American energy and infrastructure,” Melissa Simpson, president of Western Energy Alliance, told The Center Square. “It did so by implementing policies agreed to by the Biden Administration, both parties in Congress, and a unanimous Supreme Court.”

“Across the political aisle and across nearly every sector of our economy, everybody knows the federal permitting process is broken,” she continued, pointing out that it takes an average 4.5 years to complete an environmental impact statement that is often required for a federal permit.

“The pipeline industry is always in favor of rules that will expedite energy projects, especially those that help domestic energy. Industry has always supported efficient reviews of regulatory agencies and making that oversight consistent and known, which help pipeline operators and investors move forward more confidently in respect to high-stakes energy infrastructure projects,” Thure Cannon, president of the Texas Pipeline Association, told The Center Square.

Longtime energy executive Richard Welch told The Center Square, “President Trump did the oil and gas community and the American people a huge service by reforming the NEPA permitting process and ensuring rapid progress of future projects. Congress can further expedite the permitting process by reforming the duplicitous requirements within FERC at the federal level or remove the FERC permit process altogether from projects that don’t fall within the federal jurisdiction.”

They also said they expect Congress to take additional action to reform the permitting process.