The One Big Beautiful Bill lays out the Republican vision for energy policy. Tweaking the suite of tax credits to favor different technologies, Republicans boosted carbon capture credits to benefit natural gas and prioritized baseload sources like nuclear, geothermal, and storage over wind and solar, which saw accelerated phase-outs.

Even with an altered tax credit landscape, well-intentioned laws meant to prevent environmental missteps remain the most significant barrier holding America back from meeting the energy moment. Lengthy permitting timelines hinder both new and existing technologies, and the solution demands compromise. While each party often chooses certain technologies to be winners and losers, successful regulatory reform must be technology-neutral. Congress must find common-sense reforms that enable all technologies to succeed.

Yet, the current regulatory framework is not neutral, as oil and gas benefit from categorical exclusions that exempt them from the most intensive National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews. As a result, next-generation technologies are subject to significantly longer delays, hindering their success and environmental progress. Expanding these exclusions to all energy projects is one solution; however, it is a patchwork fix on a systemic issue. Instead, neutrality can be ensured by streamlining environmental reviews.

>> How the SPEED Act Charts a Path Forward for Permitting

A shorter review time and fewer cost overruns will increase developer certainty, reducing the 14 percent of projects that are canceled and spurring new development. Fortunately, comprehensive environmental reviews do not have to come at the expense of project delays. Streamlining NEPA, a procedural law, will not turn American landscapes into hellscapes with oil spills or smog-ridden skies; experts posit that the opposite will occur. Unleashing the power of American developers will result in a safer, cleaner, more robust grid that can meet the coming decade’s demand.

Reforming the lengthy page counts and man-hours racked up in a NEPA review is the end goal; however, placing a time limit on agency action wherein unfinished reviews get an automatic approval does not fully address the problem. Agencies may opt for running out the shot clock instead of completing a good-faith review; however, a cursory review may result in future lawsuits.

Instead, lawmakers should seek to shrink the scope of when courts can stop construction. Judges can issue stop-work orders during litigation, which lasts a median of 23 months, even though agencies win 80 percent of these appeal cases. Congress should make it standard that the litigant must show that the faulty Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) will cause concrete environmental damage before stopping construction. Although this does not eliminate the risk of frivolous lawsuits, it minimizes the damage they can cause.

Lawmakers can further remove the lawsuit burden from agencies by allowing them to determine the appropriate scope of an EIS, following the path laid out in the Supreme Court’s Seven County Infrastructure decision. Currently, an EIS must “include all past, present, and future actions” and their “direct and indirect effects”, allowing plaintiffs to contest effects years in the future and miles away. Refining the scope of an EIS benefits developers twofold; their EIS will be more focused on attributable and immediate effects of the project while also insulating them from litigation based on speculation and paperwork errors.

Lawmakers can also find simpler EIS reforms in expanding categorical exclusion for low-disturbance and well-understood projects. In September 2024, a bipartisan bill providing categorical exclusions for geothermal projects passed the House, which would have delivered parity with oil and gas. Such changes maintain the rigor of environmental assessments, as categorical exclusion applications are still subject to review; however, it allows existing technologies that have limited environmental impacts to save millions of dollars and years spent on compiling an EIS.

While NEPA and judicial review reforms are needed, a bipartisan deal can only be met with the inclusion of transmission reform. Building more linear infrastructure is crucial to meeting the skyrocketing electricity demand. Unlike the infrastructure, the relationship between demand and planning is not linear; it’s exponential. The projected 3 percent growth rate for electricity demand correlates to six times the planning and construction of transmission capacity. Despite the urgent need, transmission lines can face permitting review times of over a decade.

>> The Cleaner Side of American Beef

It should be noted that transmission reforms do not solely benefit renewable technologies; any energy source that doesn’t rely on rail or boat transportation benefits from transmission lines. As such, transmission reform should be framed so that it bolsters grid reliability at the lowest possible cost to ratepayers. 

Transmission projects require siting permits from each state, local, and tribal government with which they interact, whereas the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission acts as the primary siting authority for pipelines. The simplicity in siting is a large factor in the 18-month vs 10-plus year timelines to acquire permits for pipelines and transmission, respectively. Allowing FERC to become the siting authority for interstate and regional transmission projects establishes a neutral playing field for crucial interregional lines. Another option would be to have a stronger federal backstop authority to incentivize states to cooperate on projects. 

Projects must be able to deploy quickly to meet the 78 percent demand increase by 2050. Developers now have certainty about the funding options available to them. Lawmakers must come to the table and embrace regulatory reforms that offer similar certainty in America’s permitting system.

Charlie Fendig is a policy fellow at the American Conservation Coalition (ACC).

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.