Biden Administration Moves To Speed Up Permits for Clean Energy (nytimes.com) 19
The Biden administration on Tuesday released rules designed to speed up permits for clean energy while requiring federal agencies to more heavily weigh damaging effects on the climate and on low-income communities before approving projects like highways and oil wells. From a report: As part of a deal to raise the country's debt limit last year, Congress required changes to the National Environmental Policy Act, a 54-year-old bedrock law that requires the government to consider environmental effects and to seek public input before approving any project that necessitates federal permits. That bipartisan debt ceiling legislation included reforms to the environmental law designed to streamline the approval process for major construction projects, such as oil pipelines, highways and power lines for wind- and solar-generated electricity. The rules released Tuesday, by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, are intended to guide federal agencies in putting the reforms in place.
But they also lay out additional requirements created to prioritize projects with strong environmental benefits, while adding layers of review for projects that could harm the climate or their surrounding communities. "These reforms will deliver smarter decisions, quicker permitting, and projects that are built better and faster," said Brenda Mallory, chair of the council. "As we accelerate our clean energy future, we are also protecting communities from pollution and environmental harms that can result from poor planning and decision making while making sure we build projects in the right places."
But they also lay out additional requirements created to prioritize projects with strong environmental benefits, while adding layers of review for projects that could harm the climate or their surrounding communities. "These reforms will deliver smarter decisions, quicker permitting, and projects that are built better and faster," said Brenda Mallory, chair of the council. "As we accelerate our clean energy future, we are also protecting communities from pollution and environmental harms that can result from poor planning and decision making while making sure we build projects in the right places."
Re: Fuck (Score:2)
Either you're confused or Biden is actually Cowboy Neil.
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So, Biden took the legislation...and rewrote law? (Score:2)
Re:So, Biden took the legislation...and rewrote la (Score:4, Informative)
Congress: "Streamline the approval process so permits get issued faster."
Biden administration: "Okay. Here's a memo to our various agencies on how to do that."
Where's the overreach? It's literally the purpose of the Executive branch to implement the laws that Congress passes. Offering instruction on how to expedite green energy projects in addition to the other streamlining measures is 100% within the letter and intent of the law.
They didn't alter anything; they did exactly as was required by law. Sucks for the people paying you to shit on anything that's bad for the fossil fuel industry it I guess?
=Smidge=
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Except, that's not what they did. The law said:
But what the Biden admin did was:
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Nothing sneaky about it.
The law in question is the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 [congress.gov]. Title III is Permitting Reform. Section 321 is the relevant part where permitting reform is laid out.
The actual law - not a news article, but the actual law - merely says that (page 137) "A lead agency shall prescribe procedures to allow a project sponsor to prepare an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement under the supervision of the agency."
The law puts some restrictions on, but does not abate, th
Politics 101 - Political machinations (Score:2)
Changing regulations, permit approval process, foot dragging on permitting, ... and a horde of other actions is what every presidential administration does to ...
1. Reward its donors
2. Punish its opponents
3. Get a photo op and reelection news story
4. Make jobs for lobbyists, executive branch officials once they exit the fed govt payroll,
It does not mater what side you are on the president, executive branch, bureaucrats, ngo, nonprofit advocacy groups, etc., this is politics 101 with the long tail of asking
Local Permit Process (Score:4, Interesting)
The local permitting process in municipal building departments is the real hold up.
Getting the required permits for rooftop solar in my municipality can run up to 6 months.
For heat pumps / mini-splits, you need Manual J, Manual S, Surveys, Architectural Plans, Building Permit, Electrical Permit, Plumbing Permit (if also doing heat pump water heater), etc...etc...lots of stupid paperwork and extra cost.
Insulation, need a permit.
New windows, need a permit.
If they want to speed up adoption of these newer technologies, they need to clean up the local building permit process and make it easier for the home owner AND the contractors to do the work in a timely and efficient manner.
Biden admin still not serious about global warming (Score:3, Insightful)
I saw no mention of speeding up the permit process on nuclear power plants. If the Biden administration was serious about global warming and clean energy then nuclear power should get a mention. This is "Meatloaf energy policy", as in "I will do anything for energy but I won't do that! "
So long as politicians fear nuclear power more than global warming I find it difficult to take them seriously, or take global warming all that seriously. You want to tell me that we could all die if we don't reduce CO2 emissions to zero before the end of X years? (Given some positive value of X.) Okay then, why not build more nuclear power plants? Too dangerous? Too expensive? The build time exceeds X years? I fail to understand how nuclear power, an energy source with a very long record of safety, is somehow a greater risk than the certainty of death from global warming. It is difficult to believe that nuclear power plants would cost more than the damage global warming would cause. If the build time for nuclear power plants is too long then maybe we should have a look at the delays caused by federal permits.
I can't take politicians seriously on their claims on how global warming is a threat if they will not mention nuclear power as part of the solution. Note to the solar power shills, I said PART of the solution. There's been numerous papers written from trusted public and private entities on how we need nuclear fission power as part of the mix of energy solutions or we will fail to lower CO2 emissions while still meeting expected energy needs. Our options are global warming, nuclear fission, or energy shortages. If there's no mention of nuclear fission in a plan to address global warming then I expect energy shortages. When the energy shortages inevitably hit everyone then there is a panic for energy, then comes a return to digging up fossil fuels, and we go back to screams about how we are all going to die from global warming. This cycle has been repeating for something like 45 years, ever since the scare of radiation release from Three Mile Island and President Carter effectively killed the civil nuclear power industry.
This anti-nuclear scare mongering has been Democrat policy since Carter was in the White House (and Joe Biden was a senator from Delaware) up until Andrew Yang forced the Democrats to change their policies, at least on paper, by gaining significant support in his run for POTUS on a platform that included a plank in support of nuclear power. In the Democrat party platform document is a plank in support of nuclear fission power but I've yet to see any real actions to go with those words.
I keep hearing politicians talk about "all the above" energy solutions then back away from that once nuclear power is mentioned. So it is "all the above except nuclear fission", or "Meatloaf energy". These people fear nuclear fission more than global warming. I wonder why. Makes me wonder if they fear that the problem of global warming might be solved and they will have nothing to separate themselves from the Republicans. Go look at the energy planks in the platform documents from both the Democrat and Republican parties then tell me where they differ. I don't see much of a difference in theory on paper, so why so much disagreement on energy policy in practice? I don't know what they are thinking, and it's been impossible to get a straight answer out of any of them on nuclear power since Andrew Yang forced the party to reconsider the issue.
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I hear a lot about pushing nuclear power.
The only question I have is, have they figured out what to do with the waste? Last time there was a big push they said we have years to figure it out, build now figure out waste later. Then they didn't.
Is this the same all over again or did they finally figure out what to do with the nuclear waste?
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The only question I have is, have they figured out what to do with the waste?
Yes. That was figured out a long time ago.
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Although, I would dispute the notion that waste is the only problem with nuclear power.
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Nuclear isn't a serious solution, it takes too long to build and costs too much. Doesn't create nearly as many jobs as renewables either.
Biden is on the right path, he just needs to speed up dramatically. 10x current rate of installation minimum. Did you know, that in the first 3/4ths of last year, China installed more solar power than the US has in its entire history?
There is no technical reason why it can't happen, it's purely political problems.
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Did you know that China has over two dozen nuclear power reactors under construction right now?
https://www.world-nuclear.org/... [world-nuclear.org]
You know that now. I bet you wish you had not used China as an example of energy policy to follow. If nuclear power isn't a serious solution, and China has the right idea on energy policy, then it appears we have something of a contradiction.
I've been hearing how nuclear power plants take decades to build for decades. Had NIMBYs like yourself just STFU and let people that knew h
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I did know that. Have you looked into how those reactors are being built? Government funded, built by government owned companies. Are you really arguing in favour of the Chinese model for our energy supplies?
Doesn't work elsewhere. Look at EFD, owned by the French government, ran out of money and can't build anything in less than 20 years. Nothing to do with NIMBYs, that's the time AFTER the legal issues have all been resolved, e.g. Hinkley Point C being built next to an existing site.
The reason China is wi