Permitting needs an Operation Warp Speed
By: Rep. Earl L. "Buddy" Carter
We need an Operation Warp Speed for permitting reform, and President Donald J. Trump is exactly the leader who can make it happen.
In 2022, the Port of Savannah, which I am proud to represent, completed its harbor deepening project. To accommodate larger ships, it needed to dredge the channel from 42 feet to 47 feet. The permitting for this project began in 1997. That means it took 25 years to get from the initial permitting application to project completion, just to deepen an existing channel by 5 feet.
In that same amount of time, China was able to start and finish building three entirely new ports.
If the United States is going to be competitive on the world stage, we must get our burdensome permitting processes under control. I don’t care what industry you’re talking about, whether it’s pharmaceuticals, communications technology, or energy, the message is the same: permitting is crushing us. I would even submit that there is bipartisan agreement that something needs to be done about our unnecessarily slow and redundant permitting landscape across all sectors.
It’s time we turned this talk into action.
This administration took a vitally important step forward to enact this vision when it established the National Energy Dominance Council. This group is responsible for lowering prices, strengthening economic security, and restoring American energy dominance, all of which can and must be accomplished through permitting reforms. Just as President Trump was able to mobilize the government to streamline approval processes for the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, this council has the potential to streamline and improve the permitting process so that we can start building again in this country.
It is imperative that we employ this council to the fullest extent and that it doesn’t go away when we have a new commander in chief. I have introduced a bill to make this council permanent, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.
In addition, we cannot have a conversation about American energy dominance and permitting reforms without discussing critical minerals. Currently, about 70% of U.S. rare earth minerals come from China. This means that we are nearly entirely dependent on a hostile foreign nation for components used in everything from smart phones to car batteries to solar panels. China recently restricted the exporting of six heavy rare earth metals we need to produce powerful magnets. What happens if China decides to cut off the rest of our critical mineral supply? We can, and must, increase the capabilities of the United States and our allies to produce and refine critical minerals, which will help us avoid a potentially catastrophic global supply chain crisis.
Of course, unreasonable permitting regulations are the driving force behind our nation’s impotent critical mineral economy. That’s why I introduced the Streamlining Critical Mineral Permitting Act, which will speed up the permitting process for facilities that process or refine critical minerals here in the United States without sacrificing environmental protections.
These are the types of policies that the National Energy Dominance Council should be championing, and I am willing to work with them to implement this commonsense proposal.
But this is just one element of a complex system that needs comprehensive reform, looking at the entire scope of government for ways to better meet the needs of our current market rather than feed the bureaucratic machine.
President Trump has brought big ideas back to Washington. I’ll admit this is a big idea; but, I wasn’t sent to Congress to maintain the status quo. I, like every member of Congress, was elected to represent my constituents’ best interests in Washington, D.C.
The American people are clamoring for a whole-of-government approach to permitting reform, and it is high time politicians started listening.
Read the full op-ed here.
