March 21, 2023
The Honorable Kevin McCarthy
Speaker of the House
United States House of Representatives
H-232, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Hakeem Jeffries
Minority Leader
United States House of Representatives
H-204, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Speaker McCarthy and Leader Jeffries,
The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA) writes in support of H.R. 1, Lower Energy Costs Act, which would expedite permitting timelines and judicial reviews for energy infrastructure.
INGAA’s members represent most of the interstate natural gas transmission pipeline companies in the United States and Canada and operate approximately 200,000 miles of pipelines. These large capacity, critical infrastructure systems are integral to a reliable, secure, and affordable clean energy future. Maintaining a modern network of natural gas pipelines and storage facilities is essential to safely delivering energy to businesses and consumers while lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
Unfortunately, current federal permitting processes for new and expanded interstate natural gas pipelines remain cumbersome, often stalling projects for years with duplicative reviews, burdensome approvals, and unending legal challenges. Without bold and meaningful permitting reforms for interstate natural gas pipelines and related infrastructure, America will continue to struggle to meet its energy, economic, security and climate-related goals.
For these reasons, INGAA strongly endorses the Lower Energy Costs Act provisions that help reform federal permitting processes by clarifying that agencies may only analyze reasonably foreseeable environmental effects causally related to the proposed project, focusing NEPA analyses on feasible alternatives, and establishing agency and judicial review schedules. H.R. 1 also streamlines Clean Water Act certifications and associated scopes of review on federal permits. The proposal also would strengthen FERC’s primary permitting role on natural gas infrastructure, provide the agency authorization on cross-border pipeline applications and recognize the export of natural gas as being in the public interest.
INGAA stands ready to work in a bipartisan manner to enact these permitting provisions to enable the efficient and consistent development of energy infrastructure that will continue delivering the benefits of natural gas to the American people.
Sincerely,
Amy Andryszak
President & CEO
INGAA
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