The Quiet Campaign to Kill Permitting Reform
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS PLAN TO TANK PERMITTING BILL: Several major environmental organizations met this week to discuss how they could convince Democrats in Congress to tank the bipartisan permitting legislative package agreed to this week.
Not only does a transcript of the call reveal tactics they intend to use, but that the groups didn’t want key Democratic negotiators Sens. Martin Heinrich and Sheldon Whitehouse to find out.
The details: The call, reported by Daily on Energy alum Josh Siegel, featured about 89 people from groups like the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice, Defenders of Wildlife, Trust for Public Land, and more.
While the bipartisan permitting bill has been championed by both Republicans and Democrats, the environmental organizations say that the legislation includes cuts that go too far for the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Clean Water Act.
Participants on the call were candid that they wished to tank the bill, offering up tactics to do so.
“So, if we’re able to kill this bill, then I think that gives us good leverage to make the argument that this emerging alliance between the center and right all around tech finance and energy capital is not a good path forward, and that we need to rethink the political math underlying all of this movement,” Erik Schlenker-Goodrich with the Western Environmental Law Center said.
Other strategies floated included holding legal technical briefings for congressional staffers, educational briefings for reporters, and partnering with climate hawk members such as Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
One theme made clear throughout the call was that many of the organizations didn’t want key Democrats to find out.
“I think most of us are opposing it, but I just, you know, just to be totally candid, like if we really want to engage in tactics, I don’t want them getting back to Heinrich and Whitehouse,” Brett Hartl with the Center for Biological Diversity said.
By Friday morning, however, those tactics were made quite public through Siegel’s reporting.
Hartl later told him that he had no regrets for his remarks, and instead accused someone on the call of betraying “all of us.”
You can read the full transcript here.
From the Washington Examiner, Daily on Energy, October 2, 2026
America does not have an energy shortage. It has a permitting shortage.
David Blackmon’s Energy Additions, October 2, 2026
The bipartisan permitting package moving in the Senate – the American Affordability and Jobs Act, the “Freedom to Build” bill in plain English – is the first serious attempt in years to fix that.
Capito, Lee, Whitehouse, and Heinrich are not pretending the problem is a lack of studies. The problem is a system that treats delay as a virtue.
USOGA, API, IPAA, and the project developers who actually pour concrete are right. More than 650 major infrastructure projects are stuck in federal review, representing something on the order of $1.1 trillion to $1.5 trillion in investment.
McKinsey has estimated that construction costs rise 24 to 30 percent over long permitting timelines, mostly from materials, labor, and overhead while lawyers argue.
An ICF analysis commissioned by API finds comprehensive reform could cut residential electricity bills by a combined $55.6 billion from 2026 through 2035, support about 705,000 jobs, and generate nearly $24 billion in tax revenue by 2030.
That is the affordability case. It is math, not theory.
What the bill actually does:
- Narrows NEPA so reviews cover impacts tied to the project, not every hypothetical downstream effect a litigant can invent.
- Puts a 150-day clock on lawsuits and limits challenges to parties who commented and can show direct harm.
- Stops courts from vacating a finished permit while an agency fixes a paperwork defect. Remand the document. Do not halt the job.
- Keeps Clean Water Act Section 401 focused on water quality from a discharge, not a backdoor climate veto.
- Makes statutory deadlines enforceable, including a path to court when agencies simply refuse to decide.
- Environmental and safety standards stay. Endless process does not.
Senator Mike Lee put it cleanly: The bill makes it easier in America to build things.
Both parties claim they want lower power bills, more manufacturing, and data centers that do not stick households with the tab. None of that happens if every linear project spends a decade in review and another five years in court.
The Senate will need 60 votes after the midterms. Pass the bill. Finish the job this year. American energy should not have to wait in line for Washington’s bureaucracy.
As Tim Stewart, President of USOGA, said it all in a post Wednesday: “Pass the frickin’ bill so we can start building things again.”
Seven projects hold nearly 94B lb of copper; economics, infrastructure, policy, and courts will determine which reach production.
Projects behind Alaska’s copper paradox – North of 60 Mining News
Shane Lasley, October 1, 2026
Alaska’s copper paradox is not rooted in a lack of metal.
Seven advanced exploration and development projects across the state contain nearly 94 billion pounds of copper in measured, indicated, and inferred resources, ranging from high-grade volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits in the Ambler District and Southeast Alaska to one of the world’s largest undeveloped porphyry systems.
What separates those resources from production varies sharply by project.
For some, road access remains the critical link. Others need additional drilling, engineering, capital, permits, or resolution of regulatory and legal barriers.
Together, Arctic, Bornite, Sun, Alaska Range, Palmer, Whistler, and Pebble provide a snapshot of Alaska’s copper pipeline at a time when record prices and expectations of tightening global supply are putting renewed attention on the state’s enormous endowment of the red metal.