US House passes permitting-reform bill; Senate still must act

The US House of Representatives passed legislation Dec. 19 to accelerate the permitting of energy infrastructure projects through expedited environmental reviews. The bill won approval 221 to 196, with 11 Democrats joining Republicans to vote in favor.

The Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development (SPEED) Act, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), would update processes of the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which many in the oil and gas industry blame for delays in developing pipelines, power lines, LNG plants, and fossil energy projects.

The bill also accelerates permitting in many other sectors of the economy, including data centers, factories and other infrastructure like roads and buildings.

The SPEED Act simplifies permitting by reducing duplicative, multiagency reviews and establishing firm timelines for agency reviews. This would improve regulatory certainty and accelerate the development of energy infrastructure necessary to meet rising energy demand, supporters say.

The permitting reform legislation faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where lawmakers have indicated they want to create their own bill.

A separate Senate permitting-reform bill would require lawmakers in the two chambers to “negotiate to reach an agreement” on the ultimate bill, Dan Naatz, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of the Independent Producers Association of America, told Oil & Gas Journal in an interview.

Naatz said the Senate was “hard at work” on a complementary permitting bill, which he says has bipartisan support. IPAA urged the Senate to prioritize the legislation since “politics will push people further apart,” as they near the November 2026 midterm elections.

The House bill omits renewable energy projects, a sticking point for some Senate Democrats, who will seek to include wind and solar in the Senate bill. Since July 2025, the Department of Interior has required the Interior Secretary to personally sign off on every solar and wind permit, a process critics say "slow-walks" renewables while fossil fuel projects receive faster service.

The bill in many ways codifies a 2025 US Supreme Court decision in the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition et al. v. Eagle County, Co., that narrowed the scope of NEPA review. The ruling and the House legislation allow agencies to restrict their environmental analysis to the project itself, not the upstream and downstream impacts of development, Naatz said.

The legislation also addresses “judicial restraint” by requiring courts to defer to an agency's expertise in technical, environmental, and scientific analysis and imposes a 150-day statute of limitations on lawsuits.

The oil and gas industry has long lamented that court cases brought by environmental groups delay projects, putting them in jeopardy. While the agencies and industry ultimately win most court cases, project opponents still stall projects for months and even years, Naatz said.

“That’s why this is so important to independents,” who often have a more difficulty weathering delays, Naatz said. “In many cases, it simply becomes uneconomical. That’s the goal. It’s the delay they are after.”

The energy industry lauded the bill. API called it a “commonsense step” to fix a “broken” federal permitting system. “By modernizing NEPA and reducing duplicative reviews and litigation, this bill restores certainty and helps unlock the infrastructure needed to deliver affordable, reliable energy and meet growing demand,” said API President and CEO Mike Sommers.

The Natural Gas Council (NGC) added that the legislation, if passed, would benefit gas-pipeline projects and advance President Donald Trump’s objective of American energy dominance. The NGC urged the Senate to take up permitting reform promptly.