If there’s one issue which united Big Oil and green energy proponents at this week’s annual CERAWeek conference, it’s the dire state of federal permitting in the United States. U.S. energy permitting delays and the need for streamlined new project reviews dominated conversations among oil and gas executives and lawmakers meeting in Houston.
The issue has moved rapidly up the collective agenda since January, when President Joe Biden’s administration paused reviews on new liquefied natural gas export plants, a decision that has been widely criticised for creating regulatory confusion and investment uncertainty.
But this is a problem that goes beyond one particular sector. From oil pipelines to wind farms to new mines, the country’s energy transition is at risk of stalling for want of speedier permitting.
More power capacity is urgently needed in states such as Texas, where power usage is soaring thanks a combination of existing players trying to go electric and new sources of demand such as the many data centers being built to support artificial intelligence, crypto mining and an increasingly digital global economy. But building the infrastructure fast enough is proving difficult.
The problems are most acute in the mining sector, where the administration’s green energy ambitions clash with its green environmental credentials. Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy called on Biden to update and streamline the mine permitting process in order to boost domestic production of critical minerals and reduce dependence on foreign nations. Dunleavy is suing the federal government for its decision to block the Pebble copper mine due to concerns about its impact on salmon fishing.
“The U.S. government needs to stop giving lip service to permitting,” agreed Richard Adkerson, CEO of copper giant Freeport-McMoRan, speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, who was key to linking electric vehicle subsidies to domestically sourced raw materials in the Inflation Reduction Act, promised a packed conference audience that legislation streamlining permitting “will get done”.
