The rebirth of the U.S. oil and gas industry under the Trump administration has led to record-high domestic energy production. But producing energy is only part of the equation. Getting it to the places where it is needed has proven challenging, because of the difficulty in getting new energy infrastructure like pipelines, refineries, and transmission lines built. The American Petroleum Institute (API) is now pushing Congress to pass permitting reform legislation, to simplify and speed up the approval process for energy projects. "If we want to lower costs and strengthen energy security, we must move energy across the United States more efficiently and affordably," writes API VP of Government Relations Kristin Whitman. "Infrastructure bottlenecks are preventing American energy from reaching American consumers when they need it most."
Those bottlenecks are felt more in Texas, which is the nation's leading oil and gas producing state. "For a legitimate project, or anything that counts as energy infrastructure, it often takes years upon years to get these projects through the process, approved and permits issued, without every federal agency getting in the way," says Karr Ingham with the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. "We don't always see eye-to-eye with API, but on this issue we are in lock step."
The API stresses that they aren't calling for shortcuts, just a more efficient process. "Permitting reform does not mean abandoning environmental standards, it means making the process clearer, faster, and more accountable so projects can actually move to construction," wrote Whitman.
As for getting the effort through Congress, Ingham believes it could get bipartisan support if it includes renewable energy projects like wind and solar. "That's where some Democrat support of permitting reform may come from," he tells KTRH.
Regardless of how it gets done, everyone in the industry agrees that permitting reform is long overdue. "The ability of oil and natural gas producers in Texas to get their product to marketplace matters a lot," says Ingham. "It matters to producers of energy both large and small, and it matters---whether they understand it or not---to all consumers of energy."
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