The continued delays on permitting the Keystone XL pipeline—the latest of which came last Friday—illustrate clearly why America needs a streamlined permitting process.
Regulatory Reform
A modern, balanced, transparent regulatory system would give businesses the confidence they need to hire, invest, and innovate. But our current system is outdated, opaque, and enabling a regulatory onslaught that stifles economic growth. The U.S. Chamber is working to improve the rulemaking process, while seeking redress in the courts when regulators overstep their bounds. It is also working to advance legislation that would reform the system by restoring checks and balances, allowing public participation, upholding the rule of law, and ensuring good governance.
Timeline
The latest updates across all U.S. Chamber properties
While federal agencies write more rules to implement Dodd-Frank, Obamacare, and environmental laws, we're stuck with slower economic growth, fewer jobs, and lower incomes.
If this nation is to create more jobs, it has to begin building again. For this to occur, permit streamlining is a must, and these findings confirm the lack of management and delays in the current environmental review process.
In response to the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) recent report, “National Environmental Policy Act: Little Information Exists on NEPA Analyses,” U.S. Chamber Senior Vice President for the Environment, Technology, and Regulatory Affairs Bill Kovacs issued the following statement:
In a split decision, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that EPA doesn’t have to consider costs and potential economic harm in the development of the Utility MACT power plant rule.
TO: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
RE: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OA-2014-0129; Comment Request; Draft Supporting Materials for the Science Advisory Board Panel on the Role of Economy-Wide Modeling in U.S. EPA Analysis of Air Regulations, Federal Register Vol. 79, No. 24 (Wednesday, February 5, 2014).
Last week, EPA released a proposed rule that greatly expands its regulatory reach over bodies of water in the United States while ignoring its effects on small businesses.
