This week, I’m tackling the bipartisan permitting reform compromise bill, which sailed through committee with the support of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV). If passed, it would have major impacts on mining, clean energy development in Nevada and the efficiency with which the Western transmission grid is brought online.

By a 15-4 vote last week, the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee passed the Energy Permitting Reform Act, a compromise bill by brought Sens. Joe Manchin (I-WV) and John Barrasso (R-WY) to speed up the development of energy projects — renewable and fossil fuels.

It would make it easier to bring more energy projects online — whether through power line or pipeline.

Harry Godfrey, a managing director at clean energy industry group Advanced Energy United, touted the bill as a way to unleash the power of renewable energy and federal investments in the Inflation Reduction Act to buoy it — for new energy projects and the transmission lines to carry that energy around the country. 

He cited a transmission line through the Southwestern U.S. that has been held up in permitting purgatory for 17 years as an example of how the current permitting system is broken and cannot bring new projects online at the pace required to meet climate goals.

“If we're going to realize the potential of the Inflation Reduction Act and decarbonize the grid, then we have to change the status quo,” Godfrey said. “There is no way to do that without moving through permitting reform processes.” 

The Nevada Angle

Because more than 80 percent of land in Nevada is federal, most large-scale renewable energy projects require going through the permitting process to operate on public lands. Emilie Olson, a senior principal at Advanced Energy United who manages legislative engagement in Nevada, said the tangle of federal regulations for public land, state rules and local permitting processes can deter private investment in clean energy projects.

The bill sets an explicit target and deadlines to double renewable energy production on federal lands — and aims to achieve it through streamlining the environmental review process for projects considered “low-disturbance” to the land, along with some low impact renewable energy buildouts, electric grid projects and storage. 

Critically in Nevada, which has more geothermal resources than any other state, the permitting reform bill would also simplify the process for geothermal leasing. It would create a “categorical exception” to the environmental review process for geothermal projects that are proposed on land already considered disturbed, especially through prior oil and gas activity — legislation adopted from a proposal by Cortez Masto and Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV).

And the portions about transmission would affect Nevada greatly, given its geographic location between regions and new renewable activity spurred by investment from the IRA.

“Nevada is very well-positioned as a connectivity hub in terms of energy delivery — or serving as a sort of energy highway, particularly between the Northwest and the Southwest,” Olson said. “This will come even more to the fore as Nevada moves closer to delivering on its mandate for its utilities to join [a] fully operational, regionally integrated Western market.”

But to capitalize on its transmission potential — for jobs purposes and for NV Energy ratepayers — advocates say this bill is necessary to bring transmission projects to market more quickly. An immense amount of new renewable energy has been and will be generated through new solar and geothermal projects across Nevada — but without the buildout of a transmission grid, the electricity produced will have nowhere to go especially given the intermittent nature of renewable power.

Interstate projects have often been bottled up at the regulatory level, where they require approval from the Department of Energy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and each individual state. 

The bill would require various regions to collaborate on transmission plans and authorizes FERC to approve the plans, including rates and costs. And it creates a one-year timeframe for states to decide whether to authorize any project that would improve the capacity of the electric grid; otherwise, FERC can step in and issue an approval — including ensuring that customers not receiving any benefits do not incur any new costs.

If passed, the ability to bring more renewable energy projects online — and move that energy through the grid via transmission — is expected to eventually lower costs.

“In Nevada, as we grapple with rising affordability challenges left and right, with recent bill hikes, [transmission] is really important,” Olson said.

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