Sullivan Condemns New NEPA Rules That Delay Energy Infrastructure, Questions John Kerry’s Role
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) delivered remarks on the Senate floor yesterday criticizing the Biden administration’s new NEPA rules, which have the potential to further delay needed infrastructure, particularly energy infrastructure that would help bring down energy prices. In the speech, Sullivan also questioned U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s role in the rules’ creation.
HIGHLIGHTS:
ON THE LENGTHY PROCESS OF PERMITTING FOR INFRASTRUCTURE:
“As a country, we used to be really good at building stuff--building stuff on time, building stuff that is impressive. Just to give you a few examples--I think a lot of people know this--but our country used to be the envy of the world building great projects responsibly, efficiently, and on time. The Pentagon was built in 16 months. The Empire State Building was built in 1 year 45 days. With the 1,500-mile Alaska-Canadian Highway--what we call the ALCAN Highway, connecting the lower 48 all the way through Canada up into Alaska, 1,500 miles--it took 8 months to do that. So we know how to do this as a country.
“Let's fast-forward to today. A new U.S. highway construction project, to build a highway, usually takes 9 to 19 years. That is according to the GAO. Let me just give you a couple of examples of those. The Gross Reservoir in Colorado, which is going to offer clean water to the people of Colorado, has taken two decades of planning and permitting. To expand the Gross Reservoir northwest of Denver has taken two decades--20 years--to get this important project in Colorado permitted. The California bullet train project was approved in the late 1990s. It is still not built. Its costs, because of permitting delays, have gone from $33 billion to $105 billion. The Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia began in 2015 to bring natural gas. There are only 20 miles left to complete. It might not ever be completed because of permitting delays. The Federal courts are delaying, delaying, and delaying energy projects. The Kensington mine in Alaska, which now employs over 400 people--it is a gold mine with an average wage, by the way, of over $100,000, the average wage--took 20 years to permit if you include the litigation. The list goes on and on and on.”
ON THE MISUSE OF NEPA REGULATIONS TODAY:
“When NEPA was originally passed, the EIS, the environmental impact statement, was to take less than a year. It usually took less than a year and was usually a couple hundred pages. Now the average EIS takes 4 to 6 years to complete on any project in America, and it usually costs several millions of dollars. We are killing ourselves as a country in our ability to build or to not build infrastructure projects. . .
“What did we do in the infrastructure bill? It was bipartisan. We worked together and put together some pretty good permitting reform provisions. They are not nearly as good as I would have wanted them, but they were pretty good, pretty good, to get the infrastructure that is in this bill--roads; bridges; ports; yes, energy projects of pipelines for oil and gas, which we need--built quickly or at least in a reasonable amount of time, not in 20 years.
“So here is the mystery. That all happened. The President said he liked it. The unions really liked it. The building trades--the men and women who build stuff in this country--liked it. I have worked with Terry O'Sullivan, the great leader of the Laborers, on permitting reform--this very issue. We have got some good things in there. So what is the mystery?
“Here is the mystery: After all of this work and the President touting the infrastructure bill and our getting ready to build and having good impacts in terms of natural gas, not just on environment and emissions but in continuing to make us the global leader, the White House set out new rules in April, under NEPA, for infrastructure projects. What did they do? They made the NEPA rules much harder to actually build infrastructure, not just for oil and gas, but it targeted oil and gas. This is for all infrastructure--roads, bridges, ports, renewable projects, LNG projects, natural gas projects.
“The White House put out new NEPA rules rescinding the Trump administration's rules, which were quite good and similar to some of the reforms we got in the infrastructure bill, and everybody knows that these White House rules are going to delay infrastructure projects. Why in the heck would we do that as a country? We just passed a big infrastructure bill with permitting reform in it, and somebody over at the White House said: No, let's make it harder.”
ON JOHN KERRY’S ROLE IN HALTIN INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS:
“Well, as I have said on the floor of the U.S. Senate many times before, if there is something bad happening to the national interests of our country either domestically or internationally, it is probably not farfetched to assume John Kerry is near it. There is nobody in the Biden administration who so regularly tries to undermine America's national interests than John Kerry's kowtowing to the Chinese Communist Party or kissing up to Iranian terrorists. When Putin began his barbaric invasion of Ukraine, John Kerry publicly voiced his first concerns not about people dying and not about a democracy being overrun by a dictator; it was how Vladimir Putin might take his eye off his climate change goals.
“This is embarrassing as Americans. He is a senior official. Now, he has no power in terms of being confirmed by the Senate. Yes, he is a former Secretary of State and a former Senator, but on these issues, he is so out of touch with the average American. So who was pushing these new NEPA rules to delay energy projects for America? It is the big mystery. Heck, I don't even think it was the President. He seems proud of this infrastructure bill. He has told all of the unions he wants them to get to work and build, but now we have a new rule that is going to delay the building of infrastructure.
“The mystery is solved. The mystery is solved. This is a headline from a TIME magazine news story that just came out yesterday of John Kerry saying: “We Have to Push Back Hard” on Efforts to Build New [Energy] Infrastructure in Response to Rising Gas Prices.
“We have to push back hard. You can't make this stuff up. This is the guy. This is the guy. So we have a new bunch of Federal rules right now, driven by this guy--and probably Gina McCarthy--who want to drive up energy prices and make it harder for infrastructure to be built, which is exactly what this will do. Nobody is even arguing against that. It will drive up energy prices on the backs of working-class Americans, and now he is out publicly saying that we have got to do it--stop infrastructure.
“We have this new revisionism suggesting we have to be producing more energy. Well, yes, we do. It is amazing. You never know whose side this guy is on, but he is not on America's side, I will tell you that.
“So this is a new regulation, a NEPA reg. We have the authority here in Congress to use what is called a Congressional Review Act, a CRA. We have the power, when a new reg comes out, to say: No, we don't like that in the Senate. We are going to have a vote, a Congressional Review Act vote, on whether to rescind an amendment that is clearly driven by this guy--a regulation by this guy--that will delay energy projects; that will delay renewable projects; that will make sure Americans continue to pay record high energy prices. So we are going to have a vote on that. I plan on bringing that resolution to the floor soon. It is a privileged resolution, so we will get a vote whether Majority Leader Schumer wants to vote on it or not.”
FULL REMARKS:
Mr. President, I am going to talk about a mystery that has really been, certainly, flummoxing me and, I think, so many people in our Federal Government on a matter that especially impacts millions and millions of Americans suffering from high energy prices. It is a mystery for the American people. And, you know, our Federal Government can sometimes be so opaque that you often don't know who is up to what in this Big Government of ours, particularly when people are trying to do things that are so obviously harmful to the American people. So I am going to talk a little bit about this mystery because I think we finally solved it. There is a culprit who is usually the culprit in a lot of bad things happening in our Federal Government, and I am going to talk about that.
So here is a little bit of background on the mystery. We passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill in November. Now, I voted for it. Some of my colleagues didn't. I voted for it primarily because I come from a resource-rich, infrastructure-poor State. Alaska has resources--oil, gas, minerals, renewables--that can help our State and can help the country and, really, help the world, but we have very little infrastructure. Think about this. My State is 120 times bigger than Connecticut, and we have less road miles than Connecticut. And I know we have less road miles than Maryland. So, we need infrastructure. So Senator Murkowski, Congressman Young, and I participated, certainly in our own ways, on getting this infrastructure bill written and then over the goal line in terms of votes.
Overall, I thought it was a positive bill. It wasn't perfect, but especially with the focus on roads, bridges, ports, harbors, and broadband--and there is actually a provision in there for Federal loan guarantees on a huge Alaska gas project--an LNG project. So in my view, this bill was a win-win-win for jobs, infrastructure, and energy infrastructure to help bring down energy prices, and, of course, on the environment.
I like to show this chart a lot. It has gotten a lot of attention. Some of our national media folks have seen it, and they say: Gee, that can't be true. Let's PolitiFact or fact-check Senator Sullivan's emissions chart. So they have, and they have come back and said: Hey, gosh, he is actually right. It shows annual emissions from the major economies in the world since 2005 to present. Who is the leader in reducing emissions? Who is the leader? We are. America is--actually, by far; not even close--with almost a 15-percent emission reduction since 2005. Who is the main culprit of spewing emissions out into the global atmosphere? Well, you guessed it--our good friends, the Chinese communists--China, India, Iran, and Russia. So we are the leader on this.
I had the opportunity during a confirmation hearing recently for one of the Biden administration's EPA nominees in charge of air quality. I showed him this chart. He didn't seem to know a lot about the chart, but he seemed like a good guy. I asked: Hey, why do you think this happened? He kind of trotted out initially the EPA regs. Wrong answer. This is because of the revolution in the production of American gas. That is a fact, OK? You can check it all you want.
So you would think that infrastructure, part of the infrastructure bill that can help us actually produce more energy with more energy infrastructure, that everybody would be for it--helps the environment, global emissions, certainly helps workers, and helps build out infrastructure, which we sorely need. As I mentioned, Mr. President, big supporters of the infrastructure bill were all the trade unions in Alaska and America because they know they are going to get the jobs from the build-out of this infrastructure bill.
Now, one of the things the bill had that I thought was actually really important--it was something I worked on in the Environment and Public Works Committee--were provisions to streamline our Federal permitting system to be able to get infrastructure projects deployed and built. That was a big element of this bill--not as much as I wanted, but certainly a good start.
This has been an issue I have been working on since my time here in the Senate. It is a bipartisan issue, as the Presiding Officer knows. When you talk to mayors and Governors in America anywhere--it doesn't matter what party they are--they want the ability to have the Federal Government permit infrastructure projects so we can move them out. That is not controversial.
And here is the thing. As a country, we used to be really good at building stuff--building stuff on time, building stuff that is impressive. Just to give you a few examples--I think a lot of people know this--but our country used to be the envy of the world building great projects responsibly, efficiently, and on time. The Pentagon was built in 16 months. The Empire State Building was built in 1 year 45 days. With the 1,500-mile Alaska-Canadian Highway--what we call the ALCAN Highway, connecting the lower 48 all the way through Canada up into Alaska, 1,500 miles--it took 8 months to do that. So we know how to do this as a country.
Let's fast-forward to today. A new U.S. highway construction project, to build a highway, usually takes 9 to 19 years. That is according to the GAO. Let me just give you a couple of examples of those. The Gross Reservoir in Colorado, which is going to offer clean water to the people of Colorado, has taken two decades of planning and permitting. To expand the Gross Reservoir northwest of Denver has taken two decades--20 years--to get this important project in Colorado permitted. The California bullet train project was approved in the late 1990s. It is still not built. Its costs, because of permitting delays, have gone from $33 billion to $105 billion. The Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia began in 2015 to bring natural gas. There are only 20 miles left to complete. It might not ever be completed because of permitting delays. The Federal courts are delaying, delaying, and delaying energy projects. The Kensington mine in Alaska, which now employs over 400 people--it is a gold mine with an average wage, by the way, of over $100,000, the average wage--took 20 years to permit if you include the litigation. The list goes on and on and on.
When NEPA was originally passed, the EIS, the environmental impact statement, was to take less than a year. It usually took less than a year and was usually a couple hundred pages. Now the average EIS takes 4 to 6 years to complete on any project in America, and it usually costs several millions of dollars. We are killing ourselves as a country in our ability to build or to not build infrastructure projects.
What did we do in the infrastructure bill? It was bipartisan. We worked together and put together some pretty good permitting reform provisions. They are not nearly as good as I would have wanted them, but they were pretty good, pretty good, to get the infrastructure that is in this bill--roads; bridges; ports; yes, energy projects of pipelines for oil and gas, which we need--built quickly or at least in a reasonable amount of time, not in 20 years.
So here is the mystery. That all happened. The President said he liked it. The unions really liked it. The building trades--the men and women who build stuff in this country--liked it. I have worked with Terry O'Sullivan, the great leader of the Laborers, on permitting reform--this very issue. We have got some good things in there. So what is the mystery?
Here is the mystery: After all of this work and the President touting the infrastructure bill and our getting ready to build and having good impacts in terms of natural gas, not just on environment and emissions but in continuing to make us the global leader, the White House set out new rules in April, under NEPA, for infrastructure projects. What did they do? They made the NEPA rules much harder to actually build infrastructure, not just for oil and gas, but it targeted oil and gas. This is for all infrastructure--roads, bridges, ports, renewable projects, LNG projects, natural gas projects.
The White House put out new NEPA rules rescinding the Trump administration's rules, which were quite good and similar to some of the reforms we got in the infrastructure bill, and everybody knows that these White House rules are going to delay infrastructure projects. Why in the heck would we do that as a country? We just passed a big infrastructure bill with permitting reform in it, and somebody over at the White House said: No, let's make it harder.
Here is an editorial from the Wall Street Journal that talks about the infrastructure NEPA regs. It is called: “How to Kill American Infrastructure on the Sly. The White House revises NEPA rules that will scuttle [the ability to build] new roads, bridges and oil and gas pipelines.” Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the record this editorial.
Americans are going to need a split-screen for the Biden Administration's policy contradictions. Even as the President on Tuesday promoted the bipartisan infrastructure bill he signed last November, the White House moved to make it harder to build roads, bridges and, of course, oil and natural-gas pipelines. The White House Council on Environmental Quality is revising rules under the National Environmental Policy Act for permitting major construction projects. CEQ Chair Brenda Mallory says the changes will “provide regulatory certainty” and “reduce conflict.” Instead, they will cause more litigation and delays that raise construction costs, if they don't kill projects outright.
NEPA requires federal agencies to review the environmental impact of major projects that are funded by the feds or require a federal permit. Reviews can take years and run thousands of pages, covering the smallest potential impact on species, air or water quality. Project developers can be forced to mitigate these effects by, say, relocating species.
While the 1970 law was intended to prevent environmental disasters, it has become a weapon to block development. The Trump Administration sought to fast-track projects by limiting NEPA reviews to environmental effects that are directly foreseeable--e.g., how a pipeline's construction would affect a stream it crosses.
Some liberal judges, however, have interpreted NEPA broadly to require the study of effects that indirectly result from a project such as CO2 emissions. Now the Biden Administration is mandating this. CEQ's new rule will require agencies to calculate the “indirect” and “cumulative impacts” that “can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time.” This means death by a thousand regulatory cuts for many projects.
The Transportation Department will likely have to examine how a highway expansion could increase greenhouse-gas emissions in concert with new warehouses. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission might have to calculate how a new pipeline would affect emissions from upstream production and downstream consumption. Wait--didn't FERC recently walk back its policy to do exactly this? The White House is thumbing its nose at West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who blasted FERC's now-suspended policy for shutting “down the infrastructure we desperately need as a country.”
The rule's obvious intent is to make it harder to build pipelines, roads and other infrastructure that would enable more U.S. oil and gas production, even as the Administration makes phony gestures to reduce energy prices. Last Friday the Administration announced it would comply with a court order to hold oil and gas lease sales on public land. Those leases won't matter if energy companies can't get federal permits for rights-of-way.
While fossil fuels may be the rule's political target, don't be surprised if green energy is snagged in this tripwire. Environmental groups have used NEPA to block new mineral mines and transmission lines that connect distant renewable energy sources to population centers. In this Administration, the left hand doesn't seem to know what the far left hand is doing.
So the new rules come out. They are clearly meant to kill infrastructure, especially oil and gas but kind of everything. The President is touting this infrastructure bill as one of his big achievements. It was bipartisan. A number of us, myself included, voted for it, but there is somebody out there who is trying to make sure the infrastructure doesn't get built. Hmm. That is the mystery. That is the mystery. Who would do that? Well, heck. I am trying to find the answer because I really care about this issue--permitting reform--in order to get infrastructure projects built. My State has been ground zero about projects being delayed. So who is it?
So I am starting to ask around the White House. Secretary Granholm was testifying in front of the Armed Services Committee 2 weeks ago. I raised this issue with her: Madam Secretary, who the heck is doing it? Are you? Senator, I didn't know anything about this CQ rule. It is a little surprising. I mean, there was a lot about energy, but that is what she said in the hearing. Go take a look at it. I believe her. I don't think she was pushing to delay infrastructure.
Would it be the Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh? He is a former laborer, a LIUNA guy, right? I supported Marty Walsh strongly because I talked to him before his confirmation about--Hey, look. There is a group in the White House who hates energy even though it has great jobs, and there are some in the White House who think that they want to help the building trades build stuff. If you are with that group, Marty Walsh, I will support you as Secretary of Labor. He said he was. So I don't think it is he.
As a matter of fact, when these regs came out, the Laborers' International put out a statement, saying: Once again, communities in need of vital infrastructure and the hard-working men and women who build America will be waiting as project details are subjected to onerous reviews [by these new rules]. This is the Laborers' International. The men and women who build stuff are not happy about this new NEPA rule.
Americans will continue to bear the expense of NEPA-related delays, which cost taxpayers millions of dollars annually. Lengthy review processes and unpredictable legal challenges [will result from these new NEPA regs. They will have] a chilling impact on private investment in infrastructure. Of course, when we need energy, these new NEPA rules will make it harder for Americans to get energy, and the price of energy is going to continue to go like this: on the backs of working families. So was it the Secretary of Labor pushing this? I doubt it. I doubt it.
Who was it? Well, as I have said on the floor of the U.S. Senate many times before, if there is something bad happening to the national interests of our country either domestically or internationally, it is probably not farfetched to assume John Kerry is near it. There is nobody in the Biden administration who so regularly tries to undermine America's national interests than John Kerry's kowtowing to the Chinese Communist Party or kissing up to Iranian terrorists. When Putin began his barbaric invasion of Ukraine, John Kerry publicly voiced his first concerns not about people dying and not about a democracy being overrun by a dictator; it was how Vladimir Putin might take his eye off his climate change goals.
This is embarrassing as Americans. He is a senior official. Now, he has no power in terms of being confirmed by the Senate. Yes, he is a former Secretary of State and a former Senator, but on these issues, he is so out of touch with the average American. So who was pushing these new NEPA rules to delay energy projects for America? It is the big mystery. Heck, I don't even think it was the President. He seems proud of this infrastructure bill. He has told all of the unions he wants them to get to work and build, but now we have a new rule that is going to delay the building of infrastructure.
The mystery is solved. The mystery is solved. This is a headline from a TIME magazine news story that just came out yesterday of John Kerry saying: “We Have to Push Back Hard” on Efforts to Build New [Energy] Infrastructure in Response to Rising Gas Prices.
We have to push back hard. You can't make this stuff up. This is the guy. This is the guy. So we have a new bunch of Federal rules right now, driven by this guy--and probably Gina McCarthy--who want to drive up energy prices and make it harder for infrastructure to be built, which is exactly what this will do. Nobody is even arguing against that. It will drive up energy prices on the backs of working-class Americans, and now he is out publicly saying that we have got to do it--stop infrastructure.
We have this new revisionism suggesting we have to be producing more energy. Well, yes, we do. It is amazing. You never know whose side this guy is on, but he is not on America's side, I will tell you that.
So this is a new regulation, a NEPA reg. We have the authority here in Congress to use what is called a Congressional Review Act, a CRA. We have the power, when a new reg comes out, to say: No, we don't like that in the Senate. We are going to have a vote, a Congressional Review Act vote, on whether to rescind an amendment that is clearly driven by this guy--a regulation by this guy--that will delay energy projects; that will delay renewable projects; that will make sure Americans continue to pay record high energy prices. So we are going to have a vote on that. I plan on bringing that resolution to the floor soon. It is a privileged resolution, so we will get a vote whether Majority Leader Schumer wants to vote on it or not.
I am assuming the President will like my CRA because he can't want delays to his infrastructure bill. He can't want delays to getting energy relief for American families. This guy does, right? So we are going to have a little test, and we will have another mystery solved here on the Senate floor.
Two weeks ago, in the Commerce Committee, I had a little debate with a couple of my colleagues, friends of mine, but I made a statement, which I think is very true. It is certainly true in my State, and it is this: At the national level, my Democratic colleagues, when they have a choice between supporting guys like this and his radical environmental allies and the working men and women of America who want to build stuff, they always choose him and his allies. My colleagues--some of them--really got upset: How can you say that, Dan? That is not true. Well, it is true in Alaska. I see it every day.
So my CRA is going to just ask a simple question: Whom are you for? Whom do you stand with? Do you stand with the American working families, the laborers, the people who build the infrastructure that we need, the families who are suffering from high energy costs or this guy and his radical environmental ally and special interests who have a lot of power in this White House and who are clearly behind this reg that I am trying to rescind to make it harder to build infrastructure, especially American energy infrastructure? For my colleagues who say no, we are with the working men and women of America--we will see. We will see. I hope you vote with me to rescind this reg that is only harming our country, only harming working families, only harming working Americans, and promotes the radical, out-of-touch agenda of John Kerry, Gina McCarthy, and the far-left, woke environmental interests that they answer to. It is going to be an interesting vote, and the American people are going to be watching.
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