Chris Lange, FISM News
Senate Republicans are pushing for a vote on federal permitting reforms outlined as one of Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) conditions in voting for the Inflation Reduction Act.
GOP lawmakers in the senate said Tuesday that they will force Democrats to go on record with a vote on a Congressional Review Act resolution introduced by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Ark.) last month to challenge the Biden Council on Environmental Quality’s rollback of National Environmental Policy Act reforms implemented by the Trump administration. Republicans say the policy revisions have held up multiple infrastructure projects, including oil and gas projects, with bureaucratic red tape.
A Senate vote on the proposed legislation will essentially expose divisions among Democratic environmentalists, some of whom find the notion of federal permitting reforms unpalatable, if not downright objectionable.
“The president touts as one of his biggest achievements the bipartisan infrastructure bill that a number of us supported last fall, and then they come up with a [National Environmental Policy Act] rule that undoubtedly will make it harder to deploy the capital to build infrastructure,” Sullivan said on Tuesday, as reported by The Washington Examiner.
A joint resolution of disapproval requires only a simple majority to pass under the Congressional Review Act. Moreover, any senator can bring it to the floor for a vote, something Sullivan’s office said could happen as soon as this week.
Sullivan said the White House is “at war with itself” between its environmental regulations and its support for more project building.
“Show us your commitment on how serious you are with a ‘yes’ vote on the [Congressional Review Act],” Sullivan said to his Democratic colleagues, according to the report.
The looming Senate vote comes as Democrats scramble to finalize and pass the reconciliation package deal struck by Manchin and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) last week.
Manchin said Monday that he “secured a commitment” from Biden, Schumer, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., that they would sanction the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in West Virginia in exchange for his signing off on the $739 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which includes historic funding for climate-related programs.
Democrats hope to pass the climate spending bill through budget reconciliation, a move that will allow the party to avoid a Senate filibuster and push the measure through on a party-line vote in the 50-50 chamber. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., has thus far been tight-lipped about whether she will throw her support behind the reconciliation package.