Philip Rossetti Statement on the Record, “Hearing to Examine the Federal Environmental Review and Permitting Processes, Part II”

January 28, 2026

Dear Chairman Capito, Ranking Member Whitehouse and members of the Committee:

Thank you for your decision to hold a hearing examining federal environmental review and permitting processes on January 28, 2026. My name is Philip Rossetti, and I am a senior fellow for Energy and Environment at the R Street Institute (R Street). My work primarily focuses on issues related to energy availability, security, affordability and its environmental impacts. In this context, the permitting of new energy projects has been a significant focus of my research.

I am writing to you today to note the rising importance of federal permitting issues in energy policy. Federal permitting timelines are difficult to assess due to multiple benchmarks that may be used, but R Street analysis in 2021 identified marked increases in federal permitting timelines compared to earlier norms.[1] While some recent data points towards improving federal permitting timelines, this may be the result of federal agencies gaming the system by delaying the publication of documents in the federal register, creating the illusion of shorter timelines.[2] Regardless, a prevailing sentiment from the business community—and particularly in energy industries—is that permitting remains a major barrier to the market entry of new resources.

An analysis from Brookings and The Hamilton project found that permitting and siting was the primary reason for wind and solar project cancellations in the United States.[3] Even when projects obtain permits, interconnection queues further complicate the market entry of new electricity-related resources, and Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory has noted that the interconnection process has gone from taking an average of 11 months to an average of 3 years for median projects and 5 years for larger ones.[4]

While easier permitting has often been framed as a boon to polluting industries, especially the oil and gas industry, research from the R Street Institute has found that permitting barriers are considerable across all energy types. In 2021, we found that clean energy-related projects were more likely to require environmental impact statements than fossil fuel projects, and subsequent data analysis has reinforced this finding.[5] From a data perspective, we do not see an environmental justification for an overly restrictive approach to the market entry of new resources.

A key challenge, of course, is identifying the cause of protracted federal permitting timelines. Our research in 2021 found that there is a relationship between how long it takes to prepare an environmental impact statement and the survivability of permits in court. In practice, permitting agencies are incentivized to spend additional time preparing environmental impact statements and related documents due to litigation risk. A reason for this is the framing of how project permits are litigated, where plaintiffs are not usually required to put agencies on notice of potential deficiencies in their documentation during public comment periods. An exception exists under Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015 (FAST-41). Notably, even though only the largest and ostensibly most difficult projects are eligible for FAST-41, they are quicker to permit than normal.[6] As such, it is reasonable to assume that modifications to the judicial review process may play a considerable role in reducing permitting timelines, and this would not entail any reduction in environmental regulation but simply offer agencies clarity on what must be included in documents before publishing them.

We also note a growing concern in the federal permitting space sometimes referred to as “Keystone-ization.” Ever since the Keystone XL pipeline project’s cancellation, it has become commonplace for the permitting of projects to be susceptible based upon their political appeal to elected officials responsible for overseeing permitting agencies. While R Street is planning to conduct further empirical analysis on this issue, economic theory suggests that increased risk of permit revocation may prompt investors to bundle projects together to disperse permitting risk. Should such a phenomenon occur, the costs of all energy types and infrastructure in the United States will increase, as the lost revenue of projects that were unable to secure a permit would be amortized to projects that could secure one.

Overall, we see considerable economic and environmental benefits from federal permitting reform that would provide permitting agencies with greater certainty regarding documentation requirements, and reduced politicization of the permitting process.

Thank you for your consideration of this letter. If you have any questions or wish to have further discussion, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

/s/
Philip Rossetti
Senior Fellow for Energy & Environment
R Street Institute
prossetti@rstreet.org

[1] Philip Rossetti, “Addressing NEPA-Related Infrastructure Delays,” R Street Policy Study No. 234, July 2021.
https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/low-energy-fridays-how-will-the-capture-of-venezuelas-maduro-impact-energy-markets/.

[2] Alexander Hergott, written testimony submitted to the United States House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources, “Permitting Purgatory: Restoring Common Sense to NEPA Reviews,” July 22, 2025. https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118395/witnesses/HHRG-119-II00-Wstate-HerrgottA-20250722-U1.pdf

[3] Lauren Bauer et al., “Eight facts about permitting and the clean energy transition,” The Hamilton Project, May 22, 2024. https://www.hamiltonproject.org/publication/economic-fact/eight-facts-permitting-cleanenergy-transition/.

[4] Joseph Rand et al., “Queued Up: 2025 Edition, Characteristics of Power Plants Seeking Transmission Interconnection As of the End of 2024,” Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory, December 2025. https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2025-12/Queued%20Up%202025%20Edition%20-
%2012.15.2025.pdf

[5] Philip Rossetti, “Addressing NEPA-Related Infrastructure Delays,” R Street Policy Study No. 234, July 2021.
https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/low-energy-fridays-how-will-the-capture-of-venezuelas-maduro-impact-energy-markets/; Philip Rossetti, “Current Share of Energy Projects Requiring High-Level Review that
Are Clean Energy,” R Street Institute, Aug. 17, 2023. https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/current-share-of-energy-projects-requiring-high-level-review-that-are-clean-energy/.

[6] Why Congress Should Permanently Authorize FAST-41,” Bipartisan Policy Center, Aug. 2, 2021.
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/congress-authorize-fast-41/.