SAN DIEGO, CA – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, recently convened a roundtable discussion with U.S. Representative Scott Peters (CA-50) and local business leaders in San Diego, California. The conversation focused on the urgent need for Congress to modernize America's permitting process to reduce delays, lower costs, and unlock investment in critical infrastructure.
"Permitting reform is critical to San Diego's economic future because it would provide the certainty needed to build and upgrade the infrastructure that supports military readiness, port activity, energy reliability, and regional growth," said Chad Whiteman, Vice President of Environment and Regulatory Affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Greater certainty means more investment, faster project delivery, and lower costs for businesses and consumers. We appreciate Representative Peters' leadership and our partners at the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce in advancing bipartisan permitting solutions that help America build."
“The environmental laws of the 1970s worked to prevent bad projects from harming our environment and our communities,” said Representative Peters. "Fifty years later, those laws prevent us from meeting current challenges. Today, the environmental imperative is to build more energy from every source to lower costs for businesses and consumers and meet the growing demand for energy. We must reform our outdated permitting laws to make it easier to connect all energy resources to the grid, increase access to reliable and affordable energy from where it’s generated to where it’s needed, and ensure the federal permitting process is not subject to political gamesmanship. Our small businesses are counting on Congress and leading stakeholders to get this done so we can invest in good-paying jobs and strengthen our communities.”
“Our region’s businesses are affected by lengthy permitting delays that prevent important projects from getting done,” said Chris Cate, president and CEO, San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. “Whether it's housing, transportation, or energy, permitting delays increase costs and prevent economic growth across the San Diego region. We’re thankful to our partners at the U.S. Chamber and to Representative Scott Peters for championing commonsense solutions to speed up permitting timelines and increase regulatory certainty. We look forward to continuing work on this issue at the local and state level as well.”
Rep. Peters has been a leading voice on bipartisan permitting reform and introduced several legislative proposals designed to improve federal review processes such as the CERTAIN Act, ePermit Act, and others. These proposals seek to improve agency coordination, establish greater predictability in project reviews, reduce unnecessary delays, and provide increased certainty for project developers navigating the federal permitting process.
The U.S. Chamber, through its Permit America to Build initiative, has convened a coalition of more than 800 organizations from all 50 states and across broad sectors of the economy to advance meaningful permitting reform. Learn more here.
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