Right-Of-Way Application Transparency and Accountability Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. VALADAO. Madam Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support my bill, the Right-of-Way Application and Transparency Accountability Act.

The bill makes a commonsense reform to our broken Federal permitting process. Right now, there is no required timeline for Federal agencies to respond to right-of-way applications of projects on Federal lands. That means hundreds of these applications are just stuck in permitting purgatory instead of moving forward.

The time spent waiting for answers on these applications is a significant and preventable bottleneck. This wasted time is hindering domestic energy production, rural development, new roads, and so much more.

My bill would fix this by requiring Federal agencies to notify right- of-way applicants if their application is complete within 90 days of receiving it.

Notifying applicants about their status of their right-of-way application in a timely manner is a very basic step that will make the permitting process more efficient and transparent.

We cannot continue to let permitting red tape kill these infrastructure projects. We must reform the Federal permitting process so we can better utilize our domestic energy resources, expand rural broadband, build roads, and ultimately create more jobs here at home.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense bill, and I thank the chairwomen for their support.

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