House Republicans are looking to take the mantle of permitting reform after Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.V.) legislative pursuits to speed up approval and construction of new energy projects failed to pass in the Senate at the end of 2022.
The House Committee on Natural Resources held an initial legislative hearing on Tuesday to assess permitting reform legislation that would help accelerate shovel-ready projects across the country. One of these bills was the Building United States through Limited Delays and Efficient Reviews (BUILDER) Act of 2023, introduced by Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) and co-sponsored by many of his Republican colleagues.
A much-discussed component of the bill would be to modernize the “outdated” National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Proponents argue that updating the NEPA would allow infrastructure project reviews to be more efficient while cutting project costs and facilitating economic development.
House And Senate Send Rebuke Of Biden’s ESG Policy To His Desk
Republicans and a handful of Democrats in the House and Senate rebuked the White House over a rule that would allow retirement fiduciaries to invest in accordance with the environmental, social, and corporate governance movement, also known as ESG.
The Labor Department published a final rule last year that reflected the Biden administration’s directive to safeguard the economy from “climate-related financial risk that may threaten the life savings and pensions of America’s workers and families.” Under the new rule, which reverses a prohibition formerly created under the Trump administration, fiduciaries are allowed to weigh “the economic effects of climate change and other ESG considerations” as long as such concerns are relevant to a risk-and-return analysis.