Horner Featured on Politics of Energy Policy and Permitting Reform on Energy Gang Podcast

As former Republican Chief Counsel to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee from 2021 to 2024 under Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Elizabeth discussed how permitting has become a legislative catch-all phrase in the energy space.

She said, “I really view it as two different but related questions, which is permitting - the actual authorizations to build a new project, making sure you’re complying with substantive environmental laws. And then there’s the question of transmission…That is really two separate policies under our current legal system…. We have two issues that are coming together at the same time. ‘Permitting’ is a catch-all that sort of makes the issue seem simpler than it is.”

Elizabeth added that though these issues may seem new to emerging tech industries, “these are challenges that have existed for a long time.”

“The permitting part affects everyone. It affects transmission, it affects different types of generation sources, it affects new steel plants, it affects semiconductor fab facilities. And so we really need for there not to be what’s perceived as the whipsawing back and forth,” she said.

A longtime obstacle to project development is judicial review of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and related challenges to federal authorizations for projects. “That’s something that I think needs to fit into the permit [reform] equation.”

“Even if you get the permits on time — you’re left with litigation,” Elizabeth said. “What some agencies often do is they try to be robust in their record, but when you have 10,000 pages, there’s something in there that someone could argue conflicts with another statement. So, you almost are in this catch-22 where you have to be thorough, but if you’re very thorough you create ammunition for an interest that doesn’t want a project to go forward to try to latch on to.”

Elizabeth explained why she thinks reforms for all types of projects have worked in the past.

“Because [NEPA and other federal statutes] are broadly applicable statutes, we have nibbled around the edges — there has been examples of limited reforms,” Elizabeth said, adding “I think the Fiscal Responsibility Act was a great example that it applied to everyone. And that’s what folks need.”

“The Fiscal Responsibility Act… was largely about the debt ceiling and other much larger issues, but as part of that, it was the first time the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] had been amended in 50 years. And so that showed and I think built trust…. [With] these statutes, there’s a fear that if you open them up, the sky is going to fall.”

“If you have trust among the negotiators and I think on both sides of the Capitol at the legislative level, they can maintain that trust,” she noted. “[Y]ou [need to] have a common understanding of the goal and I think that’s what we’ve been missing to date. Where do we want to end up? Where do we want to end up on permitting and where do we want to end up on transmission. That first principle I think we’ve seen… now that all generation sources are being impacted, we’re starting to realize that the problem is the same for everyone. And that’s really when you have the ideal environment for legislative involvement because no matter what your values are as a Democrat or Republican… you need the same thing. And that’s kind of the prime environment we’re seeing now.”

Listen to the full podcast here.