Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the importance of both the permitting sections and the provision to expedite the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline that are included in the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

I want to commend Speaker McCarthy and House Republicans for negotiating legislation that makes responsible reductions in government spending while avoiding a government default.

Included in this legislation are key elements of the BUILDER Act permitting reform proposal, which was championed by Congressman Garret Graves and by House Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman. The bill represents a positive first step in improving the permitting projects for all kinds of projects.

By amending the National Environmental Policy Act for the first time since 1982, we will help projects of all types whether we are talking about a road, a bridge, a transmission line, a renewable energy project, a pipeline, or a port. Simply put, a project shouldn't take longer to permit than it takes to build, and that should be true regardless of what type of project is under consideration.

This legislation will impose statutory deadlines on the completion of environmental impact statements and environmental assessments.

It will streamline the review process with threshold language that tells Agencies when various levels of review are necessary.

It allows Agencies to share categorical exclusions for similar projects, because multiple Agencies should not have to do the same work twice. It makes sense.

By placing the One Federal Decision policy into the NEPA statute, this legislation will allow project sponsors to work with a single lead Federal Agency.

Most of those listening probably thought that that was what was happening anyway. But, no, all of these different Agencies were giving all individual opinions.

If we want to build things in this country, we should not force project sponsors to bounce back and forth from one Agency to the next, often facing litigation at every step. It is just simply common sense to allow project sponsors to work with one lead Agency.

More work is needed beyond this bill to fix our broken process for permitting projects. Reforms to the judicial review process, timelier Fish and Wildlife Service reviews, and improvements to the Clean Water Act are all very important.

I introduced the RESTART Act last month with a number of my EPW Republican colleagues to address those issues, and I will continue to work in a bipartisan way to see additional reforms enacted into law.

Today's legislation is a positive step on permitting reform. Again, I want to thank Congressman Graves and Chairman Westerman for their efforts to get us to this point.

Mr. President, the Mountain Valley Pipeline is a prime example of an important project that has faced senseless delays, mostly as a result of litigation filed by anti-natural gas activists at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

This project has undergone numerous--numerous--environmental reviews and has received approvals from multiple Federal Agencies both under the Trump and the Biden administrations. These include actions from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, better known as FERC; the U.S. Forest Service; the Bureau of Land Management; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection; and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. These are Agencies that have already approved the construction of this pipeline.

Given the multiple actions by Federal and State environmental agencies' approving this project, assertions that this project has not gone through adequate environmental review are just plain wrong. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have expressed support for this project. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm recently sent a letter to FERC endorsing the project.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline is 95 percent complete and would be finished today if it weren't for the rulings by the Fourth Circuit that have stayed or vacated multiple approvals granted by Federal and State environmental regulators. The Fourth Circuit has acted nine times with respect to the Mountain Valley Pipeline. On eight of those nine occasions, the court has either stayed or vacated an approval from a Federal or a State agency.

Only once did the court uphold an approval for this project, and that was when the court upheld water quality certifications from the State of Virginia, under section 401 of the Clean Water Act. But, within days of that opinion, the same Fourth Circuit panel vacated similar 401 water quality certifications from the State of West Virginia.

Because certification from both States is necessary to allow the Army Corps of Engineers to issue a required 404 permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, vacating certification from one State has had the effect of continuing to prevent the project from moving forward.

We have become all too familiar with the Fourth Circuit's blocking of key projects. The same panel that has rejected nearly all of the State and Federal approvals for the Mountain Valley Pipeline brought before it took similar actions to vacate State and Federal approvals for the now canceled Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Project sponsors for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline appealed one of the Fourth Circuit's four adverse rulings against that project all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit in a 7-to-2 opinion that was written by Justice Thomas and joined not only by Republican-appointed Justices but also by Justices Ginsburg and Breyer. Despite winning at the Supreme Court, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was canceled amid the threat of continuing litigation and permitting challenges.

Activists are using the same playbook at the Fourth Circuit to try to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline. This is a pipeline that will result in $40 million in tax revenue and $150 million in royalty payments in West Virginia annually once it is completed. The project will open markets to West Virginia's natural gas, providing good-paying jobs not just in my State, and enhancing our Nation's energy security and our own national security.

Given the project's benefits and given approvals from State and Federal regulators across multiple administrations from both parties, I do not believe that a handful of judges should have the final say.

This legislation will ratify approvals issued under the Biden administration from the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, along with approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. These documents will be insulated from judicial review to prevent further delays.

Additionally, this bill requires the Army Corps of Engineers to issue necessary project permits, including that 404 permit I talked about earlier, within 21 days. Both Virginia and West Virginia environmental regulators have issued necessary certifications for this permit, but the Fourth Circuit has delayed further permitting action by vacating West Virginia's certification.

This legislation makes it crystal clear that Congress expects the Mountain Valley Pipeline to be completed, consistent with the previously approved environmental documents.

I have consistently fought for commonsense reforms so that we can actually ensure that we can build here in America, including key projects such as the Mountain Valley Pipeline. It is my hope that permitting reforms--both the provisions that are in this bill and those that we should consider in the future--will allow projects to be approved and constructed in an efficient manner that does not require congressional intervention.

It also should be pointed out and emphasized that this does not mean that any environmental regulation that is put forward is ever shortchanged or overlooked. That is not the point here.

On occasions when the process fails projects of significant regional and national interest, we have the authority and the responsibility as elected Representatives to step in and ensure a project is allowed to proceed.

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