Central Nova News

The leaders of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC), including Co-Chairs Reps. Doris Matsui, Mike Quigley, and Paul Tonko, Vice Chairs Reps. Don Beyer, Matt Cartwright, Sean Casten, Chellie Pingree, and Katie Porter, and Chair Emeritus Rep. Gerry Connolly, released the following statement in response to the passage of H.R. 3746, the Bipartisan Budget Agreement.

“While we are breathing a sigh of relief that we are on the path to prevent a catastrophic default on our nation’s debt, we are deeply troubled by the path that got us here and some of the provisions that made it into the final package. For weeks now, we witnessed House Republicans callously hold the U.S. economy hostage to pursue their radical agenda, including attempting to cut the transformational clean energy programs in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). We are appreciative that President Biden held the line on these investments, and that they were preserved in the negotiated agreement. These investments have already delivered billions of dollars in new clean energy and manufacturing projects and thousands of good-paying jobs in red, blue, and purple states.

“However, more must be done to achieve the rapid buildout of clean energy infrastructure at the pace necessary to meet our climate goals. That is why our members have been working towards reforming our nation’s transmission and permitting processes to fulfill this vision.

“Let us be clear, the permitting provisions in this budget agreement do nothing to address the primary bottleneck currently waylaying the clean energy transition: our transmission system. Despite the rhetoric of House Republicans, it is not the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) preventing this deployment, but rather the inability to connect renewable energy projects to the grid fast enough. The only nod to transmission in the package is a duplicative study. The need for a rapid build-out of transmission capacity has already been intensively studied and is well understood. Another study will only delay real reform – ironic, given Republicans’ claims that this bill will speed up projects. We will hold Speaker McCarthy to his word that the House majority party will pursue meaningful transmission reform after this deal.

“Lastly, we are highly disappointed that the deal includes the automatic approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. We have federal agencies that do environmental reviews for a reason, and it is their job to determine whether there are environmental concerns that need to be addressed. This is congressional malpractice to waive these concerns as a matter of statute.”

Original source can be found here.