Creating Confidence in Clean Water Permitting Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. HOULAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan and straightforward amendment to help pass the backlog of permits that have slowed down the development of infrastructure and energy projects across this country.
As the co-chair of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, I am very excited to be able to offer this amendment alongside my Republican co- chair, Andrew Garbarino, and caucus members David Valadao and Mike Lawler.
Our caucus has heard from businesses, experts, and agency officials that have all expressed the very same message: Permitting in our country takes too long, and our Nation's climate and infrastructure goals are being diminished as a result.
Ensuring timely review processes is also critical as our Nation hopes to maximize the potential of recent historic legislation, including the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. In other words, slow permitting means slower progress for our economy.
In issuing permits, the Federal Government does their due diligence to ensure that these projects will not cause undue harm to our communities, waters, and environment. That said, under no circumstances should issues with agency staffing hamstring the permitting of projects, costing us good-paying jobs, time, and money for our businesses.
Unfortunately, the EPA faces a significant backlog. At the end of fiscal year 2023, the Agency's backlog of general permits under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System impacted 600 facilities nationwide. Further, in 2018, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cited that the average time to complete a standard individual permit is 329 days.
Every day that a permit is not issued, time, jobs, and the potential vitality of an entire project may be lost. The EPA and the Army Corps have a responsibility to meet their regulatory permitting deadlines so that we can get shovels in the ground and projects online and on time.
That is why I offered this very straightforward and bipartisan amendment that will help us to better understand how staffing shortfalls are impacting permitting timelines. This amendment does two major things. It requires the EPA and the Army Corps to issue a report on the staffing needs that they have to process and issue permits under the Clean Water Act based on data over the last 5 years. The amendment also requires the agencies to cite the impact that funding for additional full-time employees might have on processing timelines.
This will allow Congress to be able to take any requisite action to be able to support the hardworking public servants who process these applications and who help reduce that backlog moving forward.
Mr. Chair, I urge all of my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans alike, to support my bipartisan amendment. I thank those who have already supported this amendment, and I especially thank Ranking Member Larsen for his leadership and support.
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Ms. HOULAHAN. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate the bipartisan nature with which this amendment has been accepted and received. I urge my colleagues to vote ``aye'' on this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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