Unleashing U.S. Energy: The Critical Need for Efficient Permitting

(NewsUSA) - There is broad agreement across party lines that it takes too long to build anything in the United States.   A new energy generation project, like a solar or wind farm, that needs a federal permit takes an average of 4.5 years to secure it. Projects that only need state or local permits can go faster but still take unnecessarily long.
Some projects’ permit wait time is more than a decade. That’s twice the time it took to build the Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge.  Protecting the environment is critical, of course, but deployment of the energy infrastructure necessary to help our nation meet the growing demand for electricity while continuing to power our economy is being done in ways that are compatible with environmental protection.

While the industry has been accelerating investments in clean energy projects, manufacturing facilities and new technology, timely permitting is critical to unlocking the pipeline of projects that will unleash economic growth, create additional good-paying American jobs, and reduce costs for American consumers.

Failure to reform our current permitting system puts clean energy projects that power millions of homes at risk of significant delay, along with 150,000 jobs and $100 billion+ of investment, including over 40 GW of projects reliant on the siting and permitting of new transmission lines.

Delays create uncertainty and raise costs for project developers that ultimately get passed on to the consumer. Delays can also have ripple effects throughout the economy—throwing off project timelines, the buildout of domestic supply chains, and the jobs and economic activity tied to these projects.

The American Clean Power Association (ACP) advocates for comprehensive permitting policies, working with members of Congress from both political parties to accelerate the deployment of clean energy and cut red tape—all while maintaining robust environmental reviews.

Clean power sources like solar and wind have minimal environmental impacts and proactively take steps to reduce even those and they provide economic benefits in the form of tax revenue, land lease payments and job creation. They also generate large amounts of electricity while diversifying America’s energy portfolio, which enhances reliability while benefiting consumers.

Expanding power generation and transmission is about as fundamental as you can get – we need more electricity to power our devices, factories, workplaces; really our entire lives. Having a dependable supply of electricity is not something we should ever take for granted. Reforming the permitting process is critical to setting the U.S on a path to greater energy security.