Dive Brief:
- All of the 50 clean energy developers surveyed by finance technology company Crux reported having a project materially impacted by federal permitting last year, which “represents roughly 11 GW of capacity affected across survey respondents alone,” Crux said in a report released Tuesday.
- “Ultimately, the [Inflation Reduction Act] was enacted without a companion permitting-reform package, and America moved to capitalize on the IRA’s investments with one hand tied behind its back,” the report said.
- Crux conducted its survey in February and specifically sought clean energy developers whose projects had been impacted by federal permitting issues, but said that nearly 80% of all clean energy developers it initially surveyed reported encountering those issues.
Dive Insight:
“More than 80% of respondents reported intentionally siting projects to avoid triggering federal permitting requirements,” the report said. “Projects that never break ground do not show up in permitting data, which means the true cost of federal permitting is systematically undercounted. Regulatory avoidance — not where energy is actually needed — is driving siting decisions.”
Crux reported that 72% of respondents chose more predictable outcomes as the single change they would most like to see made to the federal permitting process, while only 12% said they wanted to see faster timelines and 8% wanted simpler processes.
“Developers are not asking for weaker environmental regulations; rather, they're asking for more certainty on how those regulations are applied,” the report said.
Throughout the report, Crux included anonymous quotes from surveyed developers, which alleged issues with red tape including three years and nearly $5 million of investment in a Nevada geothermal project for which the permitting process ultimately “stalled indefinitely” due to an “interagency disagreement on sage grouse habitat mitigation requirements.”
Another anonymous developer said that a utility-scale solar project on federal land was delayed by more than a year after an environmental group filed a lawsuit challenging federal approval of the project, and although the agency prevailed in court, “the litigation triggered multiple rounds of appeals … locking up capital, prolonging financing carry costs, and forcing a full rebid of certain equipment packages as pricing escalated.”
Crux concludes its report by calling for federal permitting reform that provides a “more predictable and consistent framework, one that maintains substantive protections while improving purely procedural aspects.”
Permitting reform efforts once again stalled in Congress after the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act — which would revise the National Environmental Policy Act — passed the House on Dec. 18 but faced opposition from Democratic lawmakers in the Senate due to the Trump administration’s anti-renewables policies.
“It makes no sense to pass a bipartisan permitting reform that gets illegally butchered by a lawless executive branch,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in January. “This is not Democrat versus Republican. This is legislative versus executive.”
Law firm Arnold & Porter said in a March 23 article that permitting reform has increasing bipartisan support as federal permitting continues to delay needed infrastructure development, but “dynamics between the White House and Congress have complicated the process.”
During a webinar hosted by the firm, Arnold & Porter Senior Policy Advisor Bree Raum “cautioned that the legislative window for permitting reform may be narrowing,” the firm said. “While permitting reform is receiving historical bipartisan and cross-industry support, she noted that potential changes in House and Senate leadership following the 2026 midterm elections could complicate efforts to pass a comprehensive permitting reform package.”
