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Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Joe Manchin (D-WV) speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill, May 4, 2023.
Tucked inside the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which purportedly focuses on federal spending, were some critical handouts for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), including an expedited approval process for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP).
The 303-mile-long natural gas pipeline, marred in legal battles from environmental justice advocates and landowners, runs through West Virginia to Virginia. Its approval, and the elimination of judicial review, gives Manchin a legislative accomplishment to tout at home. That it clashes with the Biden administration’s purported climate agenda is probably also a plus for Manchin.
The pipeline’s inclusion, The Washington Post reported earlier this week, was a returned favor from the White House in exchange for Manchin’s vote for the Inflation Reduction Act. Other reports from Fox, according to people close to negotiations, suggest that House Republicans led the way on the MVP, which Manchin helped clinch only toward the end of negotiations. One source told Fox: “Manchin could have asked to put MVP in any of the Dem-only must-pass bills they passed in the last two years. He didn’t because he couldn’t get it done.”
It doesn’t make much sense for House Republicans to gift wrap an accomplishment to Manchin, who could be the deciding vote for a Democratic Senate if he wins re-election next year. But there were other reasons why the GOP might have seen it in their interest to give up the pipeline: The political turn of events that passage will set in motion could hold back the cause of clean energy for years, in a boost for the fossil fuel industry.
For Manchin, the Pipeline Payoff, plus rollbacks to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), fulfills key components from his earlier proposed stand-alone permitting reform bill, known as the Building American Energy Security Act of 2023. Manchin was promised a vote on this bill last year, which ended up not happening due to lack of support. The White House believes that including the pipeline and the NEPA changes in the FRA fulfills that commitment.
When Manchin reintroduced his bill in early May, he called it a “starting point” for permitting reform negotiations. But now the Fiscal Responsibility Act has cannibalized Manchin’s bill, enacting primarily the elements attractive to conservatives and pro-fossil fuel interests, while leaving the key ask for clean-energy advocates behind. This leaves environmental justice groups and progressives without leverage for future permitting reform negotiations.
Most of the NEPA changes are relatively minor, and several involve initiatives that the Biden administration has already been implementing. But they do include timeline cuts for the most thorough NEPA reviews, known as environmental impact statements. The longest NEPA reviews can take up to four and a half years, but the FRA cuts the maximum time to two years for strict reviews and one year for most other studies. Agencies can ask for an extension, but project sponsors can sue for expedited approval. Even if that suit is successful, the agency would have an additional 90 days. Other changes include arbitrary page limits for NEPA studies.
All of these changes are expected to happen without additional funding to NEPA agencies; in fact, the agencies that carry out NEPA are likely to see spending freezes or even cuts under the spending cap in the FRA. In other words, the changes create near-impossible expectations for every federal agency that works on a NEPA review: Do more with less money.
Advocates told the Prospect that, by clearing the way on MVP and NEPA reforms, Manchin has gained additional leverage for other climate and environmental policy priorities, particularly around vacant positions across the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). “[Manchin’s] got other specific fights on definitions from EV tax credits to EPA initiatives to curtail greenhouse gas emissions,” Tyson Slocum, energy program director for Public Citizen, told the Prospect.
As chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Manchin has the power to block nominees from hearings or deny support needed to get nominees onto the Senate floor. He has publicly stated that he would oppose all EPA nominees until the Biden administration curtailed its “radical climate agenda.” And last year, Manchin denied FERC chair Richard Glick a hearing for his renomination, leading him to have to step down from the agency. This has created a 2-2 split on the agency, keeping it from its existing permitting reform efforts.
The administration did not appear to secure promises from Manchin for future votes in exchange for the pipeline. The White House declined to comment on when they would announce a nominee for the vacant commissioner seat at FERC. At time of writing, Manchin’s office did not respond on whether he would schedule hearings for the consideration of the White House’s EPA nominees.
In exchange for the NEPA alterations and the Pipeline Payoff, Democrats received a study on transmission line expansion that won’t be finished for years. Additionally, the Post reported that according to Rob Gramlich, president of the energy consulting group Grid Strategies, the legislative language contained “technical problems,” suggesting that it may not even survive in the long run. The Electric Reliability Organization has 18 months to complete the transmission study and present it to FERC. It would then be available for public comment, and up to a year after the public comment period, the study’s conclusions would be presented to Congress for final approval. Everyone involved in the process knows that a study is Washington-speak for not actually doing anything.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has reportedly given his word to President Biden to engage in discussions for a broader permitting reform down the road. But as Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer has explained, it’s hard to see how that can come together now. The elements of a permitting deal that would be attractive to Republicans and Manchin have already passed. Meanwhile, one of the most critical components for connecting renewable energy to the grid was kicked down the road. What Democrats and climate advocates would have to give up in a compromise would likely be too great, or would nullify the climate benefits of transmission reform.
As Dana Johnson, senior director of strategy and federal policy for WE ACT for Environmental Justice, told the Prospect: “I’m not sure that we have a bargaining chip and I’m not sure that anyone will come back to the table and work on a stand-alone [permitting reform] bill … There is no incentive.”
