Midstream infrastructure development is imperative to expanding the natural gas industry’s market share in our nation’s energy portfolio. Even in a down-market period, we see industry moving ahead with major midstream projects, such as the four new natural gas processing plants being constructed in North Dakota.

One of the greatest challenges that the midstream industry faces is obtaining permits for our projects. Permits can make or break a project, and it seems like the time frame to obtain permits has grown longer and longer.

As required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), some projects must be evaluated through an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). According to a 2014 U.S. Government Accountability Office report, the average preparation time for an EIS finalized in 2012 was 4.6 years. This is the highest average since 1997. The report also detailed that EIS preparation time increased at an average rate of 34.2 days per year.

To put this in perspective, the 800-mile Trans-Alaskan crude oil pipeline was built in three years between 1974 and 1977, the Pentagon was built in less than two years and Hoover Dam was constructed in five years. These large projects were developed in less time than it now takes to get a federal permit. A large reason for this delay is the constant challenging of permits by environmental activists who often challenge these projects based on their own ideology rather than the project’s merits. Lack of agency resources for evaluating and processing permits can also cause delays.

However, there is good news. Before the holidays, Congress passed H.R. 22, the “Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act” (FAST Act). The FAST Act, also referred to as the “highway bill,” is our nation’s long-term transportation spending bill. President Barack Obama signed the FAST Act into law in December. Contained in the FAST Act was a permit streamlining provision that the Gas Processors Association (GPA) supported and advocated for, along with a national coalition led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The permit streamlining provision will bring greater transparency, accountability and efficiency to the federal permitting review process. More specifically, this provision covers projects that are required to go through NEPA. It covers a number of sectors, including the infrastructure and the energy sectors.

It’s important to note that this provision is not intended to steer the respective permitting agencies in a specific direction on approving or denying a permit; rather it ensures there are reasonable time limits and greater transparency in the permitting process.

More specifically, the provision:

• Requires that agencies involve themselves in the process early and comment early, avoiding 11th-hour objections that can restart the entire review timetable;

• Establishes a reasonable process for determining the scope of project alternatives, so the environmental review does not devolve into an endless quest to evaluate infeasible alternatives;\

• Allows state-level environmental reviews to be used where the state has done a competent job, thereby avoiding needless duplication of state work by federal reviewers; and

• Reduces the statute of limitations to challenge a project review from six years to two years and requires courts, when addressing requests for injunctions to stop covered projects, to consider the potential negative impacts on job creation if the injunction is granted. This permit streamlining provision will not solve every problem in the permitting process, but it is a significant step in the right direction bringing efficiency, coordination and predictability to the permitting process. It’s important to note that this significant achievement would not have been possible without a strong bipartisan congressional coalition that has championed this cause.

GPA believes this new and better coordination and predictability in the permitting process will translate into job creation, economic growth and new development opportunities for the midstream industry.

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