This summer, President Trump and Congress have been extremely successful with remaking the American economy to deliver for workers and businesses, passing the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act (OBBB) in July that extends important tax cuts and unleashes American energy.
In particular, American energy dominance and independence was a key winner, as numerous provisions repealed Biden-era giveaways to green energy that held back our economy, making energy less reliable and affordable. Yet the OBBB is just the first step for unleashing American energy, and the next step must be comprehensive permitting reform. With these mandates to expand our national energy dominance, lawmakers must remove the onerous red tape and bureaucratic delays to get critical infrastructure projects off the ground.
The OBBB was the right first step, accelerating the end to wind and solar tax credits that were part of the “Green New Deal” that constrained domestic energy supply. The bill also compels the Interior Department to hold more land leases in our waters, which as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum states, “marks a significant shift in how we manage our public lands, support energy development and work with local communities.”
Importantly, the OBBB also begins the process of permitting reform by eliminating burdensome fees on onshore oil, gas and coal development, updating regulations that will make it easier for operators to combine production from multiple leases. This makes it easier to expand infrastructure projects like natural gas pipelines, which is our second-most consumed fuel after oil, accounting for 36% of our energy consumption. Natural gas is also our most-produced fuel at 38%, or 39.3 quadrillion British thermal units, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
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Our nation’s permitting process is currently governed by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Clean Water Act (CWA), both outdated laws that have made it such that projects on average take 4.5 years to permit, with transmission projects to protect our national grid taking 6.5 years. With the OBBB, sponsors can now pay for an expedited review of their Environmental Assessment (EA), which has shorter deadlines and requirements to update the process.
Yet comprehensive permitting reform is still very much needed to grow our economy even more and bring these projects online. McKinsey recently estimated that between $240 and $280 billion in infrastructure capital expenditures enters the federal permitting process each year, yet a staggering $1.1 trillion to $1.5 trillion is currently stalled in federal permitting, costing billions in lost revenue, GDP, and power generation capacity.
For example, in 2024, the International Gas Union estimated annual U.S. natural gas production growth to only rise by 2% and pipeline and liquified natural gas (LNG) exports to grow 5%, which industry experts assert is due to federal permitting challenges. Since European natural gas demand grew by 6.5% and North American demand grew 2.5% in the first half of 2025 according to the International Energy Agency, this discrepancy from permitting will push prices higher and weaken American energy competitiveness overall.
Beyond these economic concerns, environmental activists take advantage of our judicial system to delay projects, subjecting critical infrastructure proposals to an endless legal purgatory. A 2024 report from the Breakthrough Institute found that mostly non-governmental organizations, not individuals impacted, bring forward permitting suits at a rate of 72%. Even worse, these suits are largely filed by only a few organizations: just 10 groups account for 35% of litigations.
To fix all of these issues, thankfully a bipartisan proposal has been proposed this Congress, with House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and U.S. Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) introducing the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act. The SPEED Act aims to modernize NEPA and streamline the permitting process by simplifying NEPA analyses, clarifying when NEPA is triggered, and establishing limitations for judicial review.
Comprehensive proposals like the SPEED Act are the much-needed next step to unleash American energy after the OBBB. While its first steps are a positive development in getting energy infrastructure projects online and growing good-paying industrial jobs, deeper issues remain with NEPA and the system of judicial review. When Congress comes back this fall, comprehensive permitting reform must be top of mind for policymakers, which will strengthen our domestic economy, national security, and position in the global marketplace.
The Honorable Tim Huelskamp represented Kansas’s 1st District in Congress from 2011 to 2017, chaired the House Tea Party Caucus, and was a member of the 2024 RNC Platform Committee.
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